Again, I am so blown away by all of your words... I can't properly express how happy it makes me.

This chapter kicked my ass. Thankfully, HollettLA & TheOtherBella were there make me take a long hard look at it and kick it's ass for kicking mine. So basically, there was a lot of ass kickage and those two ladies were the refs. I owe them pounds of cookies when this all done.

So, here's Bella. All I ask is that you don't read it thinking she was the bad guy. Maybe, just maybe, some of what she says will make sense.

Most of you were thrilled to see Esme and was sure she would fix everything. Just remember that although she's back, years of strain can't be eased in a few weeks. Instead, there's another strong woman saving the day. I'll give you a hint: Droga means "dear one" in Polish.

I don't own, I just play.

Chapter 19, The Importance of Being Edward

BPOV

I quit my job.

I had no intention of ever going back to New York. Being home was comfortable. Being home was easy. Even if Sue had moved out in some sort of protest, she'd get over it. Sue made me read the letter that Edward sent her. I can't lie and say that I wasn't moved by it, because I was, very much. But I always knew Edward was a good man with a good heart, that wasn't the issue. The issue was importance. Call me a conceited, egotistical bitch, but I should have been first in his life, not his secrets. He was first in my life, after all.

For some time I'd been hiding how annoyed and concerned I was that he hadn't told me everything about his past. It worried me to no end. He loved me, right? He showed me all the time that he did. I know I had shown him how much I loved and trusted him. Where was the reciprocation, then? Did he think it was so easy for me to admit my past to him? It wasn't. Every word that left my mouth stung. But I fucking did it, for him... for us.

He was right; his name didn't matter to me at all. What mattered to me was that his past was more important to him than his future. It occurred to me over our time together, that the only thing that would get in our way was whatever truth he was concealing. I even worried that when he told me everything, it would forever be this anvil hanging over our heads ready to drop. I couldn't help but ponder what was more important to him, his past secrets, or his future with me. Well, I got my answer and it killed me.

My father was wrong to snoop, I knew that. But when I found out exactly how much Edward had been keeping from me, something snapped. Every single fear I had came to fruition. I saw how his past would always hold him back from me. I saw a future with him only ever being 75% there. Some part of him would always be stuck in the past, stuck on that boat. He would never be able to put it all behind him and give me as much as I wanted to give him. After all, if he wanted to give me all of him, he would have by now. What the hell was he waiting for?

During our fight, he told me we'd talk when we got back from Santa Fe. Oh, really? I thought to myself. Convenient. I called him on it, too. He tripped over his own words. The final straw was the "I can't live without you," shit. How dare he. I mean really how dare he. Intentionally or not, it incensed me.

Being angry was doing wonders for my work, though. I pumped out incredible piece after incredible piece and mailed them directly to Rosalie. Alice and I were on shaky ground. She called me after she had seen Edward. She was just as furious as I was, but not at him, at me. We screamed at each other like banshees. We hung up on each other, called each other again, and then hung up on each other again.

The following day, she called me in tears and made me cry, too. Then we started screaming again. Then we cried. I was exhausted by it all. All I could think to do with my time was focus on my jewelry. I sent Rose 30 pieces in my first four weeks in Santa Fe. She called me, amazed. She said they were exquisite and she had decided to start a slightly more upscale line of her accessories to match. During that call, she admitted that being in the middle of my Alice's issues was tough for her, plus she missed me. I missed her, too.

My fifth week in Santa Fe I got a call from my landlord. I quickly sent him the rent check and wondered what my next steps would be. I was waiting for something but I didn't know what. Edward hadn't called, emailed, or gotten in touch with me in any way since he had left. I should have been happy about that, but instead, it infuriated me further. What was he doing? Giving me space to work things out, or leaving me alone forever? Did I want to work things out, or did I want to be left alone forever? I was pretty sure that Sue was in contact with him, but I wasn't about to ask her.

I cried myself to sleep every night. Even though I was angry at everything and everyone, I was utterly devastated. It was at night, in my old bedroom, in my old bed, where I broke down. Somehow, Edward and I ruined what we had. Somehow, unintentionally, we had murdered our own relationship. I wanted a future with him so badly. I wanted children with him... in my dreams I saw them, too. They were beautiful, tall, strong children, with heads of crazy copper curls and hearts of gold.

On my thirtieth birthday I had promised myself I was done with the old Bella. I was tired of being afraid, alone, and unhappy. Not even a full year later, I found myself afraid, alone, and unhappy. I was so disappointed in myself. I was crippled by own disappointment. All I could do was work to keep the shame at bay. The tears and pain I felt at night, the anger and resentment I felt during the day, eventually melted into a murky soup. That soup was so thick, that soon enough I couldn't move an inch in any direction.

My father confronted me. I pretty sure he thought it would help. That somehow, by speaking to me about his mistakes, I'd feel free and mobile again. It didn't work.

"I was wrong, baby," my father said one afternoon.

"A-huh." I was sitting at the dining room table, a soldering iron in one hand, a spool of silver in the other. I was only half listening.

"Bella. Put down all that down and pay attention, please."

I did. I looked at him; I was surprised by what I saw. Had I been so self-involved that I hadn't noticed the dark circles under my father's eyes and the slight hunch in his once proud shoulders? He looked ten years older. Jesus, what kind of selfish person was I that I hadn't even realized he wasn't doing well.

"Dad, you look awful."

He laughed, sardonically.

"Gee, thanks."

He sat down at the table, pushing away bowls of beads and spools of metals.

"Bella, I don't say this very often, you know that. But I was wrong. I never should have invaded your and Edward's privacy like that."

"Dad..."

"Let me finish, baby girl, okay?"

I nodded.

"You know I love you. You know that I would do anything for you. You're my little girl, my only child and I'd do anything to make you happy and keep you safe."

"I know that, Dad. And I appreciate it so much."

"Right. Well, when your Mom passed, 'Papa mode' went into high gear. None of us saw it coming; none of us knew Renee was sick. The fact that I couldn't protect you from that devastated me. I was so angry at Renee, but Bella baby, I was angrier at myself. It's my job to take care of you, to look out for you, and I failed. I couldn't protect you from your Mother's death and I couldn't stop you from hurting. I couldn't even stop you from moving away from me."

His fists were clenched.

"I was terrified for you, Bella. You were out of my sight and I couldn't protect you anymore. It drove me nuts. Those first few months were bad for me. I had to take anti-anxiety pills for a year."

"I know, Dad, Sue told me."

"I figured she did. The point is, my job is to keep you happy and to protect you. My job has never been to meddle. And when my meddling ruined what you had with Edward... I'll never forgive myself for it."

"I forgive you, Dad. You did what you thought you needed to."

"Sue said you'd let me off the hook."

"Sue was right."

"I really wish you were angry at me."

"Dad, whether I found out from you or Edward, it never would have been easy. It was never about his name, you know that right?"

"Yes. But I'm really curious why you kicked him out just to spend every night crying."

So he knew. I shouldn't have been surprised. It was damn near impossible to hide things from Charlie Swan.

"It's about priorities, Dad. Edward was always mine. I fought for him. Do you know how many times he tried to get rid of me... how many times he blew up and fought against what was happening in the beginning? Every time we climbed a wall together, there was another one, higher than the last, behind it. I never lost sight of how much I wanted him in my life. Never once. But I can't help but feel that maybe he doesn't feel the same way."

"Bella, he brought you home, baby."

"I know he loves me. But..." I trailed off, nervous to voice my fears.

"Tell me, please."

"What if I'm not as important to him as his secrets were? What if the accident, his scars, his guilt, and whatever else he keeps bottled up, take first place?"

"You're scared."

"Yes. And I think I have a right to be."

"You going to let that fear keep you from him?"

I couldn't lie to him. I never had the power to lie to my father. So I answered truthfully.

"I don't know."

Over the next weeks I fought with myself. Also over the next weeks, there wasn't even as much as a peep from Edward. I was torn about that. A quarter of me wanted the silence. A quarter of me wanted him calling every hour on the hour. A quarter of me wanted to call himevery hour on the hour. The last quarter thought I should shut up and deal with the consequences of things had I said and done.

Sue, Charlie and I started speaking as a family again. Charlie apologized to Sue and told her that he had not only apologized to me, but unbeknownst to all of us, he called Edward and apologized to him, too. He got voice mail. I wasn't entirely surprised. I told Sue everything I had told Charlie. She sympathized with me, told me she understood, and then told me to say those things to Edward's face, not hers. I wasn't ready for that, though.

I called Alice. I was honest with her and told her how I felt without screaming and without tears. She apologized to me and said she should have asked what happened and how I felt before yelling. I apologized to her, too. We wound up crying again... happy tears. After our little teary session, I found out that she and Rosie had almost closed a deal to sell my most recent pieces, along with the coordinating evening bags that Rosie had made, to an exclusive, private boutique in Manhattan. It was the kind of place the hot young social elite shop at, a word of mouth place that only recently, thanks to a New York Times article I had actually read a few months back, was the hot place to shop for one-of-a-kind finds. I smiled for the first time in almost two months.

"Bella, I miss you so much!" Alice wailed over the phone. I could hear her trying not to cry on the other end. "We need to do brunch, just the three of us. Please come home?"

Home. I wasn't sure where home was. But brunch with my two best friends was tempting. Plus, I really wanted to see my jewelry and Rose's clutches being lovingly displayed at the boutique. Also, I needed to make a decision about New York. My lease was up at the end of the summer. It was time to either sign it again, or let it go. It was clear that I could work from Santa Fe and still be a part of the company easily enough. Was that what I wanted, though?

The following week, I was sitting at a familiar place, at a familiar table, waiting for my two best friends to walk through the door. I got there almost twenty minutes early, my nerves not willing me to sit still. I heard them before I saw them. When they saw me, all hell broke loose. We were an enthusiastic tangle of limbs, hair, purses, scarves, coats, and tears... lots of tears. By the time we had calmed down, the waiter had brought over three lychee Bellinis without being asked. We gulped them down and ordered another round. Brunch was wonderful, so was being with friends again.

The following Monday night I was in my apartment waiting for my pizza. I still wasn't sure what to do about my apartment or where to live. If I stayed in New York, I'd definitely need at least a part time job since I quit the dispatch office. In Santa Fe, I could live with my parents (or in the house Edward rented, but I couldn't walk in there, there were too many memories of Edward and my first night there), until things with the business took off. Seeing the girls had been amazing – but I wasn't sure if they were enough to keep me in New York. There was still a great, big gaping hole in my heart; they only filled a little part of it.

The doorbell rang and I let the pizza guy up. I grabbed my wallet and opened the door waiting for the delivery man. It wasn't my food.

"Lydia?"

"Bella, we talk, please."

"Umm, sure, come in. Can I get you something? Tea?"

"Tea, thank you."

"Have a seat anywhere."

She sat on the love seat, in front of the coffee table, and waited for me.

Two cups of tea in hand, I made my way to her and settled into the arm chair.

"Edward is different now then before," she started in her broken, accented English.

"Before? Angry, with fire and passion. He fight for life, ah? Everyday was fight, fight, fight. I know if he fight, he live. Now, is flat. No passion, no anger, only ghost."

I was surprised to hear all that right off the bat. No, how are you, how have things been? But then again, I knew she was there for Edward, to plead his case even though I hadn't asked for it. I wondered if she had come of her own volition, or if it was Alice or even Edward's doing. I soon found out, that not only had she come on her own, but that by doing so, she was risking everything.

"Lydia, I know I hurt him, but he..." she cut me off.

"I must tell story. He never tell, but I must."

"A story?"

"He never tell about me, no?"

"No, only that you had a large family."

The buzzer rang and I apologized explaining about the pizza. A few minutes later, it was paid for and promptly forgotten about, sitting on the kitchen table.

"I come here in 1998..."

The story she told me was eye opening and tragic.

In 1998, Lydia's daughter, Maria, brought her mother from Poland to America. Maria went to college on a physics scholarship here in the States. She met a man and later, they got married. Thanks to that marriage, Maria got citizenship. She and her husband were pregnant with their first child, had just moved into a house in New Jersey, and both wanted Lydia with them. Lydia's husband, Maria's father, had died almost six years earlier. Maria's younger brother, Feliks, was in the army and never home. The baby of the family, Oskar, was still at University in Poland studying to become a pharmacist. He was swamped with work and lived with a group of other students in Krakow, on the other side of the country. No one liked the thought of Lydia being alone.

Lydia was more than happy to move and help Maria with the pregnancy and soon to be grandchild. Although she was still young enough to work, knowing very little English and having no degree made work a near impossibility in America. Between her daughter and son-in-law, she didn't really need to work, but she wasn't used to sitting around idly.

Lydia took to taking care of the house, the bills, the cooking, and generally becoming "Mom" again. When she found a Polish church not too far from the house, she quickly became a valued member. She learned enough English to get by and found her days were blessedly busy again, especially after the birth of her first grandson. At her church, she volunteered to take over the community out-reach programs.

The following year, Feliks was discharged from the army after an injury, and decided to join the family in New Jersey. Thanks to his record in the army, he was able to get citizenship and find his way onto the Jersey police force. He found a woman, he got married, and they too, started a family. A few years after that, thanks to his brother's connections, Oskar was able to move to the States. He went back to school, learned what he needed to, and was a pharmacist at a local hospital in Jersey. He married one of the nurses and started a family of his own. Lydia was happy, she was busy, and she was surrounded by loved ones.

In 2000, a member of her church suffered terribly after the death of her husband. It was bad enough, in fact, that her family admitted her into a mental health facility just outside of Philadelphia. Lydia went two or three times a week to spend time with her friend. The staff, seeing how calming she was with not only her friend but the other patients around her, asked if she would come and permanently volunteer.

Most patients weren't well enough to be with people, but the older patients, most with Alzheimer's or dementia, whose families basically dropped them off and forgot about them, were greatly comforted by a smiling face and someone reading to them. Lydia offered the services of her churches out-reach group to the cause. She was at the facility every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It was on a particularly beautiful Wednesday, in the facility's garden, that she first met Edward.

He had checked in two days previous. Being a privately run facility, the grounds and upkeep of the place were impeccable. Unless necessary, patients didn't need to wear pajamas or special clothing. Edward was just wearing a pair of jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a black t-shirt... nothing out of the ordinary at all. She could only see the left side of his body. He was somewhat curled into the corner of the bench, only exposing half of himself. She noticed the orderly hovering nearby, but she was sure he was there for one of the other patients. It never occurred to her that the tall, handsome, although very tired looking young man, wasthe patient. She struck up a conversation.

"Beautiful day, no?"

He wouldn't answer her. She simply assumed that he was overwhelmed with the place. Knowing that a loved one or friend was there because they had to be, took a lot out of one. Most likely, she thought, he had just spent time with a grandparent who couldn't even remember who he was. She'd seen the devastating effects that had on people every week.

"Is grandparent? Somewhere inside, they know you. I promise," she stated with absolute surety.

Nothing.

"You must sit straight, take breath, enjoy sun!"

He didn't say anything, he didn't acknowledge her. But he did sit up straighter. She took that as a good sign. She sat with the handsome young man for many more minutes until the orderly who had been so close, came by and told the young man it was time for his therapy session.

Edward looked at her, straight on, exposing what he really looked like, and dared her to judge him. She had lived through violence, cold days and nights, communism and death back home in Poland. She had seen the horrific results of World War II - the scarred, amputated bodies of survivors. There was nothing about Edward that could make her flinch. There was fight and anger in his tired eyes, though. As long he never gives up the fight, he'll survive,Lydia remembered thinking. Instead of giving him what he wanted, a horrified look or grimace, Lydia promised him she would be there on Friday. "Same time, same bench."

And so it began their unlikely relationship.

To my already shocked system, hearing that Edward had a breakdown the first weekend he was there, was shattering. Apparently, he woke up screaming, convinced one of his friend's ghosts was haunting him. He thrashed, he threw things, he had to be wrestled to the ground and sedated. He couldn't sleep for the next few days unless he was drugged. That Monday, when Lydia came in, she noticed his black eye and busted lip. For the first time, he spoke to her, whispering his troubles. He told her he was seeing things. He told her they medicated him because he saw his friend's ghost.

She didn't call him crazy. She didn't look at him like he was a freak. She didn't even gasp. No, instead, she asked him how he looked.

Edward looked at her like shewas nuts. She laughed remembering it. Lydia didn't think he was crazy, she knew for a fact that ghosts existed; she lived in a country full of them. She asked again and he told her. He looked as he always did, he said - blue eyes, blond hair, stupid grin on his face, wearing a polo shirt, the collar popped. As he spoke, something seemed to dawn on him.

"He wasn't burnt," he said quietly, confused.

When he started laughing, tears came down his face. Lydia sat there, stoically, letting him work through whatever it was he was going through. When he stopped, he looked at her and wrinkled his brow. He asked her who she was, what she was. Was she in fact, real? To prove it, she pinched his cheek. He yelped.

"Very real. Lydia."

"I'm Edward."

"Why was friend burnt?"

"No, that's the thing, he wasn't. He looked... he looked great, healthy and happy."

"This is good, no?"

"Very good, yes."

Over the course of his weeks there, Edward opened up to Lydia more than anyone else. The anger, the pain, the hurt, all of it. He told her about the fire, about the guilt, about the cover up, every detail. She took in all the information, never judging, only listening. From what I could tell, it was Lydia that made Edward somewhat whole again, not the institution he was in.

That following Friday, Edward had a bad night. A very bad night. Alice, against his wishes, had told his parents where he was. I'm sure they called him out of concern, thinking they were showing their love, but instead, what started out as an innocent call, turned into a blood-bath... literally. It was hard for me to understand everything Lydia told me. She didn't seem to have the right words for all the things she was trying to portray to me, but I got the gist of it. Edward, either interpreted incorrectly, or his parents chose the wrong things to say, but in the end, was made to believe that they were glad he was in an institution. They seemed to say that it was where he belonged and that if he hadn't gone on his own volition, they would have found a way to get him there, one way or another.

That was the night he broke his first mirror.

A loud series of crashes alerted the orderly who went running to Edward's room that night. Those crashes were Edward, slamming his fists into the mirrors in his room and bathroom so hard it not only shattered glass, not only ripped open his flesh, but knocked the mirrors clear off of the walls. He was in hysterics. It took two orderlies to wrangle him and an injection from a nurse before he stopped thrashing. He wouldn't speak, he wouldn't eat or drink, and he was restrained to his own bed.

When Lydia came around the following morning, one of Edward's nurses rushed her to him. Alarmed that nothing had gotten through to him, the nurse thought the only thing that might work was Lydia due to their surprising connection. When Lydia came in, she shook her head and cursed in Polish. That Edward would have hurt himself was a surprise to her. He had seemed angry, he had seemed depressed and sad, but he had never seemed violent.

She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. She didn't speak for a long time, simply keeping eye contact with him. Eventually, some kind of recognition passed over his eyes. He finally acknowledged Lydia, even though she had been looking at him for a while.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly.

"Why hurt yourself?"

"I couldn't stand my reflection anymore."

"You stronger than that."

"No, I'm not," he said, defeated.

"You are alive. You never give up when in pain, you never give up when you leave family, you not give up now. Never give up."

"Why not? What could possibly be waiting for me down the road?"

"Vanity is deadly sin."

"I'm not religious and I don't care."

"Sloth is deadly sin, too, Edward."

"Sloth? Sloth! I'm not lazy! What the hell do you think I'm doing here?" He pulled on his restraints, trying to break free. "I came here trying to be pro-active because I was sure that if I didn't get help, I'd wind up either going nuts or killing myself!" He was furious.

Lydia just smiled. There was the fight she wanted to see. There was the passion and the confirmation she needed that Edward would be okay in time.

She stayed with him until he calmed down. She fed him, something that he was incredibly embarrassed about he told her later. She made sure he drank and took his medications, too. Much later, after the doctor had seen him, (the doctor was none too thrilled that the nurse had let Lydia in his room, but Edward snapped at him saying that he was paying his salary and he specifically asked for Lydia... a flat-out lie), and after he was assured that Edward had, in fact, taken all his medication, his restraints were taken off in the presence of three orderlies and no one else.

Even after that horrible morning, no matter the weather, no matter how busy she was, Lydia was there for Edward every week. She often wondered why no one ever came to visit. He told her, one day, it was because he asked everyone not to. She knew he was ashamed. She also knew that he would never tell anyone what had happened there. The only people on the planet who knew what Edward lived through were Lydia, a few nurses, a handful of orderlies, and a couple of doctors... and then, me.

Slowly, day by day, Edward got stronger. He no longer looked tired. He no longer needed an orderly at his side. He stood taller, not hunched and slouched. For every story she told him, he shared one in return. No one, not even his doctors, understood why he opened up to the Polish church-lady, the grandmother. But the truth was, it didn't matter. He was opening up and letting it all out.

When it was time for Edward to leave after a month of help and various medications, he asked Lydia to come to New York. He confided to her, and no one else, that he was terrified. He knew she was the only person who would ever understand his ghosts, real or imagined. He promised to pay her an exorbitant amount of money. Enough money that none of her current or future grandchildren would ever have to worry about paying for college - for that alone she might have said yes. But more importantly, she loved knowing that she would be busy and truly needed. She knew that the only other person in his life was Alice, and she simply couldn't allow the strong, brave, angry man to be that alone again.

The second she agreed, Edward called Alice and asked her to find a one bedroom apartment within a ten block radius of his place. Lydia assumed that Alice would find one, and with the money she was being paid, would simply pay rent. But when Lydia didn't get a rent check the first, second, then third month she was there, she asked Alice about it. It wasn't a rental. Edward had authorized Alice to buy the lovely one bedroom on a quiet side street, exactly seven blocks away, and put it in Lydia's name. She was shocked. When she found out, she tried to thank him. She baked him all kinds of Polish treats, cooked vats of amazing soups, but he didn't want to hear it. He said her secrecy and loyalty were enough. So, she never spoke about any of it. Also, she would never leave him until she was too old to do the work.

Once, years ago, Lydia asked him why he had opened up to her the way he did. Why he trusted her so quickly and completely? He said it was because she never looked at him as anything other than a man. Not a patient, not a victim, simply a man. He couldn't say the same of his doctors, the nurses, orderlies, or even his fellow "inmates," as he liked to call them. Lydia understood, maybe better than anyone, that to a man like Edward, being reminded that he wasn't someone to pity or tiptoe around, was critically important. It kept him grounded and alive.

So, when after years of anger and pain Edward and I found each other, Lydia knew it was God smiling down on him. A deeply religious woman, she was certain that all of Edward's good deeds had resulted in his finally finding love. She saw the change in him almost immediately. His ever-present anger turned into hope. It was a different, more productive kind of passion that kept him going after he'd met me.

After Santa Fe, Edward was indifferent. All the passion, be it hope, love, or anger, seemed to disappear and she knew she had to do something. After all, it was his spirit that had kept him alive thus far. She broke her pledge of secrecy to Edward and came to me. She knew he wouldn't put his life at risk anymore; he didn't even have fire enough to do that. But the kind of life he was living was worse than the life of bitter calculation he lived before. He was simply walking through his days like one of the ghosts he still saw on occasion.

Lydia loved Edward like another one of her many grandchildren. Seeing him like that, nothing more than a shadow of his former self, was too much for her. She risked her relationship and long standing promises of trust and loyalty by coming to me and confessing everything.

When she was done talking, the tea was ice cold - so was I. I was shivering, and then the bitter tears came.

"Why couldn't he just tell me all of this?"

"He is proud man. I know this is sin, too. But pride keep him alive, so I say is okay this time." She paused, taking me in my miserable state before speaking again. "Bella, he love you. I tell you now, no man will love you like him, is not possibility. He make mistake, he keep secret, he not tell you everything. This was wrong. Let me ask, please. If story was you, you tell secrets?"

No one had asked me that, yet. Hundreds of thoughts swirled in my head. Would I tell the person I loved that because of an accident, a freak moment of mechanical ineptitude, I had lost my friends, my career, my name, my family, my entire future? And because of that freak moment, I was seeing the ghosts of my dead friends that I thought I had killed somehow? Would I admit that I had been worried that I could kill myself? That I had put myself in a mental health institution and had been strapped to a bed for my own safety because I had done serious bodily harm... would I tell the person I loved all that?

What would I do if the person I loved had lost someone important to them, say their mother, to suicide? Would I tell them that, although I was okay now, had been living a normal life for years, there was a time that I was contemplating ending my own life? The partial answer was yes, because I loved them. But the rest of the answer was, only on my own terms when I knew she was ready to hear it all… when I was sure she wouldn't run from me out of fear.

And what had I done? Without even understanding his whole story, I had run from him out of fear. I hadn't even heard the worst part of his life. I thought I had been cheated on by secrets. I thought his past was more important to him than I was. I thought he just couldn't, or wouldn't, let go of the pain. That no matter what I did or said, he would be crippled by his insecurities. Foolishly, I assumed that I wasn't worth his secrets. It turned out, I wasn't.

Like some miserable, excuse of a woman, I had let all that I had worked so hard for slip through my fingers. I wouldn't let him give me up. I refused. Time after time I had made sure he understood that I wasn't going anywhere. No matter how many times he yelled and screamed, I had faced him and fought back. No matter how many times he scared me, I had refused to let go of what we had. The sad and painful irony of the whole mess was that I hadgiven up on him. True, he hadn't fought for me like I had him; but then again, I didn't have a past that might have pushed him away from me.

"Lydia, how do I make this better?"

"Only go to him."

"Will you come with me?"

"No, droga. You go by self," she said smiling.

Minutes later, I was in the back of a familiar car, being driven a familiar route up to a familiar block in Manhattan. I didn't know what to expect, but I was ready to fight for us once again.

A/N

I don't know if I'm mentioned this before, but Lydia is based on a real woman. She is Polish, in her 50's, and a housekeeper with a gaggle of grandchildren. Also like Lydia, she is so much more. I told her I wanted to include her in a story I was writing - she was incredibly flattered.

Reviews are like vats of Polish soup; warm, delicious, and from the heart.