Bobbie Spencer smiled sadly at her Sister-in-law as she poured Bourbon into both tumblers. Thirty years ago it had been so easy to believe Tracy a rich-bitch with no sense of compassion or even feels at all. Briefly she wondered what would have happened if she had made the gesture to get to know her back then. How would their lives be different?
"Don't do that", Tracy ordered after taking a long gulp from her glass and sighing as the liquid burned down her throat. "Don't do that" she said more gently "it won't do us any good."
"Do what?" Bobbie asked, quickly placing her glass on the table with a dull thud.
"Those woulda, coulda, shoulda's you were mulling over. Don't waste the energy."
"How did you know I was thinking that?" Bobbie asked, perhaps a bit more snippy than she needed to be.
Tracy put her hand up signal her desire to keep the conversation from getting testy. "Because I've been doing it, and it's no good. I think everyone who's seen as much as we have starts to think like that, but it doesn't change a thing." As she finished her voice was almost a whisper in her struggle with self-control. "I've asked myself what I could have seen or done to avert this tragedy, but I don't know if there was anything I could have done differently. That's what I've been telling the kids anyway. Lulu... God Lulu...
Bobbie reached across the table to squeeze Tracy's hand and was surprised that her fingers felt like ice. Tracy was always so full of energy and whipping her way through the crowd that Bobbie naturally assumed she would always be hot to the touch, but the woman in front of her was cold and struggling to hold herself together.
"Lulu thinks it's her job to bring everyone back together. I can't tell her she's wrong for wanting that because I want my family back too.
Realizing what she said Tracy straightened and pulled her hand away from Bobbie's. Letting her go, Bobbie sat back and took a sip from her own glass, waiting to see where their conversation was heading.
"I'm sure you think that's rather presumptuous of me, thinking this is my family when it isn't."
"Isn't it? Bobbie asked, surprising Tracy. "This is your husband and while they might be his kids, you have been the one constant in their lives for the past 6 years. I love my brother but I'm under no illusions that he has been around for them. Yes, in the crunch he always comes to the rescue - my brother is rather good at that hero stuff - but in their day to day lives, Lucky, Lulu and Ethan know you alone are the one who has their back."
Smiling sadly Tracy looked hard at the earnestness in the other woman's face. "Thank you for that" she said. "Sometimes I think I've overstepped, they do have mothers after all."
"Neither of whom are here or calling to see how their kids are coping with everything. No, don't apologize for being the one to follow up with them and trying to help. You know, the other day I asked Lucky how things were going and all he could talk about was how much Luke's leaving was hurting you but how you never let them take care of you."
Waving her hand to dismiss the notion Tracy replied, "Why should I? Lucky is the one who lost a child and all three of them are now loosing their father. Nothing is happening to me."
"Tracy..." Bobbie tilted her head and shook it a little as she tried to get under that think crust that always seemed to surround the other woman when anything personal was up for discussion.
"What?" Tracy asked as she took another gulp of her drink.
"Can we agree that everyone in this situation is having difficulty, not just the kids, not just Luke, but you too."
"I'll get over it. It's Lulu, Lucky and Ethan that I'm concerned with. Luke, for better or worse, makes his own choices and has to deal with the consequences. But the kids are just left hanging."
"They are all adults" Bobbie offered gently.
"Does that really make a difference?" Tracy snapped. "When your father acts out or insults you or publicly humiliates you or abandons you, does it really make a difference what your birth certificate says?" Tracy couldn't keep the crack out of her voice this time and was ever so grateful that the darkness hid the tears that were now falling softly down her cheeks. "I look at those adults and see the children they are, just wanting their Dad to return and make it better. Dammit, how could he do this to them... and yes, how could he do this to me?
The break in her voice got deeper as Tracy struggled with her self-control. The anger started to wash over her in waves and it was all she could do not to pick up the glass and smash it. "How dare he stand us up like this? Just there, over by that bar" Tracy pointed animatedly as she spoke, "just over there I held him close and told him we would get through this together, and then he runs. That damn Luke Spencer ran away. But this time he didn't just run, he left a path of utter destruction and devastation in his wake. Six months ago we stood in front of everyone and he promised... he promised never to leave me." She couldn't keep the cry out of her voice any longer. "He promised..."
Bobbie sat quietly watching the shadowed form of her sister-in-law shake with grief and cover her eyes to get her composure back. Yes, her brother had promised and she knew with complete conviction that running away was Luke's way of holding true to the promise to always put his wife and family first. Few understood the demons that drove him, but Bobbie knew. However that didn't help the woman across from her.
"I know what I'm feeling" Tracy continued, "and it's just a fraction of what those kids are feeling. As for Lucky... I don't know how he gets out of bed in the morning and keeps on going. I don't think I could."
"Lucky gets out of bed in the morning because he's got Siobhan with him and he gets to see his other son. Lulu has Dante helping her through this. Ethan has Maya to lean on. You are the one who has been left alone, Tracy" Bobbie offered.
"No Maya."
"Excuse me?"
"It seems dear, sweet, perfect great-granddaughter Maya couldn't keep her legs crossed while she was out of town," Tracy said sarcastically.
"Oh dear..."
"Well that 'dear'..." Tracy swallowed more from her glass to calm herself down and spoke more gently, "that 'dear' is now walking around town trying to pretend none of this effects him and I'm worried that he will be the next Spencer to run away. Lulu can't handle that. But really, how much more can any of us take?"
"Do you want me to answer that or do you just want me to pour?" Bobbie asked with more than a trace of sarcastic humour.
Tracy smirked for the first time and held out her almost empty glass. "What do you think?" Once full Tracy tossed the drink back and banged the glass on the table. "Shit!"
"Come again? Bobbie slurred, just faintly aware she was working her way through her third tumbler of bourbon.
Reaching for the bottle Tracy filled her glass once more and drained half the contents. "This whole situation, God I hate emotional swings. That's why I love business, no nonsense, get the deal done and at the end of the day earnings and losses are all reduced to numbers, but this has me all over the map. One minute I want to break everything around me, the next I'm crying like a wounded animal, and a moment later I feel empty. There are only four people in my life who have ever seen me cry: Lulu, Dillon, Mother and Luke. But here I am in front of you and the tears just come whether I want them to or not. I hate this."
"What do you want to feel?" Bobbie asked her.
"Nothing."