AN: This will be a dark chapter, so you might need some tissues handy.
"What did you say?" Mark gaped at James' confession, with everyone else having similar reactions. "Sammy's your son?"
"I'm sorry for lying to everyone," James continued, sounding sincerely remorseful. "I wanted to keep Sammy far away from Hannah, so I told everyone I met that Sammy was my brother, hoping it would make it harder for her to find us. But she found Sammy and me regardless, and I'm just so sorry I dragged all of you into this." For a long moment, everyone was quiet, still recovering from the bombshell James had dropped. After a silence, Joanne spoke up.
"James, I think you need to start from the beginning," she announced. Pausing for a second or two, James finally nodded in agreement.
"Lucia," Emily turned to her young daughter before James could begin, "I think it's your bedtime."
"But, Mom!" Lucia cried. "I wanna stay and listen to James explain!"
"Goodnight, Lucia," Mark spoke pointedly. Sulking at the unfairness, Lucia stomped off, muttering under her breath about how much she hated having a bedtime. After Lucia had gone upstairs, making her annoyance obvious as she went, James moved to the couch, where he started telling his story.
"Hannah was my high school sweetheart," James began, wishing Penny would look away. He hated explaining about this subject to her. "We were one of those stereotypical 'sugary-sweet' teen couples, being voted 'cutest couple' in the year book, and candidates for Prom King and Queen. When we graduated from high school, Hannah and I, along with some of our school friends, started planning a trip up to New York, so we could have one last hurrah before college. We finally made it here sometime in August, and we spent the week just being your typical teenagers who were free from high school and the restrictions of parents, going clubbing and just staying out all night." James paused in his story to swallow hard, as if he'd suddenly gotten a bad taste in his mouth.
"It was on our last night here before returning home that Hannah and I slept together for the first time." James visibly winced, once again wishing Penny would look away.
"After we came back home to Maine and entered college, Hannah and I continued making our relationship…serious, with the two of us practically sharing a dorm room. We also made an agreement to return to New York each year, as some sort of anniversary. It was shortly after one of those 'anniversaries', when we started our Sophomore year, that our lives changed forever.
"I was in the middle of reading my textbook for a class when I got a call from Hannah, saying she wanted to see me immediately, and that it was important. When I arrived at her dorm room, she showed me her positive pregnancy test. I almost couldn't believe it. I was actually going to be a father, and I was completely thrilled at the thought of having a baby with Hannah. However, when my parents found out, they were less pleased with the situation, saying that I'd been completely irresponsible, and had destroyed my entire life because of that baby. In the end, they kicked me out of their house. And that's the real reason why I've never brought Penny to meet them. As far as my parents are concerned, I'm pretty much dead to them.
"Hannah and I ended up moving into a small apartment, which was located near the campus. We made a promise that we would raise our baby, and that we would always stay together, no matter what. And at the time, I thought that things would always be like that between Hannah and me.
"Nine months passed, and the time came for Hannah to give birth. At the hospital, her labor continued for quite a while, until she finally gave birth to Sammy. Sammy…and his twin sister, Mattie."
"Sammy has a twin sister?" Maureen interrupted suddenly. "Why didn't you ever mention her, James?" Joanne quickly elbowed Maureen, seeing the pained look appear on James' face.
"Go on, James," Joanne urged gently. "What happened next?"
"Well, for a time, things were great," James continued. "Hannah and I lived in our apartment with Sammy and Mattie. I woke up every day, feeling like the luckiest guy alive, all because of the small family I had. But then, things started changing. It was gradual, at first, so I didn't notice it for a while. Hannah started to come home later then she said she would, or she would forget about things like taking Sammy and Mattie to the pediatrician for check-ups. Like I said, I didn't really notice it at first, but then, I came home one day to find that Hannah wasn't home, and Sammy and Mattie had been left in the apartment alone. Needless to say, that worried me. I called up Hannah's friends, and they all said the same thing, that they didn't know where she was.
"About an hour later, Hannah finally arrived home, acting like everything was perfectly fine. I asked her why she'd left our children alone, and she immediately got defensive, saying that if she needed to get out of the house for a bit, then she had every right to do so. I tried to figure out why she'd bit my head off, and acted like I did something wrong, but she got even more angry and locked herself in our bedroom.
"Things got progressively worse and worse between Hannah and me as time went on. It was like she was a completely different person, and I had no idea what was happening. Then, one day, I was cleaning the apartment, and I found a nearly empty beer bottle hidden in the bookshelf. This discovery set off a serious alarm bell in my head. You see, I had a friend who was studying to be a drug and alcohol counselor, so I had a basic idea of what the warning signs were. When Hannah came home, I confronted her about the issue. Of course, she got angry, and ended up storming out.
"I called up my friend shortly after that, and he had me come down to the place where he was interning so we could discuss ways to help Hannah. Before I left, I called up a mutual friend of Hannah and me, asking her to watch Sammy and Mattie while I was out. I talked my friend for almost and hour, and in the end, he came back to the apartment, where Hannah had returned while I was gone. With my friend's help, we eventually got Hannah to agree to attend counseling about her drinking."
"So, she got better, then?" Rodolfo guessed.
"I thought she was," James sighed heavily. "I thought she was showing improvements, and that I was getting the Hannah I'd fallen in love with in high school back. But I was wrong. I was so horribly wrong.
"Hannah had been getting counseling for a few months when I had an exam scheduled. I left the apartment, leaving Hannah to care for our children, and went off to take the exam without much thought about it." James trailed off for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut again, fighting a fresh wave of tears.
"When I came back home," he whispered, "I went in to check up on Sammy and Mattie. When I reached into the crib to tuck Mattie in, I realized she wasn't breathing. I called 911 immediately. The moment I got off the phone, I saw Hannah sitting there in the corner, with an empty bottle in her hand. She was just staring at me with this really scary, emotionless look. She just said 'she just wouldn't stop crying.'
"At the emergency room, I waited for news about Mattie for almost an hour before the doctor came out, and informed me that Mattie had…" James voice died in his throat, but no one needed him to complete that sentence to know what had happened to Mattie.
"Before the ambulance arrived," James forced himself to continue, his voice continuously breaking, "Hannah had said that Mattie wouldn't stop crying, and… the doctors, when examining her body, found evidence that….she'd been shaken. And there were bruises on her arms and chest, just like the ones we found on Zoey's arm a few months ago." Subconsciously, Zack shifted uncomfortably, the way he always did when someone mentioned Zoey.
James opened his mouth to continue, but then put his face in his hands and started to sob for a few minutes while everyone kept a respectful silence. Hesitating only for a moment, Penny placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, doing what she could to nonverbally offer some comfort. When James had composed himself, he looked up again.
"After that, I got scared," James admitted. "My daughter, my baby girl, was dead because of Hannah's drinking problem. I was so scared that she'd end up hurting Sammy, too. I couldn't let that happen. Sammy was all I had now. I know that I had the option of going to court, to terminate Hannah's custody rights of Sammy and all, but I was just so scared. I don't know as much about the legal system as you do, Joanne, but I did know that Hannah and I were never legally married to one another, and we only lived together. Because of that, I was terrified that I'd loose custody of Sammy along with Hannah. I'd already lost a daughter, and I didn't want to loose my son as well.
"So, I ran. That very night, when Hannah was sleeping, I packed up some things and, with Sammy, I ran, all the way here to New York. I figured it was the perfect bluff, that Hannah would never think I'd go somewhere so obvious. All the same, I did everything I could to keep Hannah from finding us, from saying that Sammy was my brother instead of my son, and even adopting the false surname of Parson. I couldn't let her find us, because I was scared to death that she'd take Sammy back, and end up hurting him like she hurt Mattie. I know she'd be in her rights to do so, since she was the birth mother, and I'd virtually kidnapped him. So I continued to do what I could to keep her from finding us. But now, she's finally tracked us down, and is determined to get Sammy back from me, even if it means hurting innocent people. Just like today, because I know she was the one who started that fire at the hospital."
As James, finished his story, he finally turned to face Penny who had remained quiet the whole time. With tears starting to flow down his cheeks, he spoke only to her.
"I'm sorry, Penny," James choked. "I lied to you, and because of that, you could have died today. I lied about who I was from the very start, making the relationship we shared a dishonest one, and as a result, I've given you no reason to trust me. But you need to know that there was one thing that I was completely honest about. I really do love you."