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"READ!" demanded Helen Connor. Carla was back in the kitchen with her once more and she had opened one in the stack of many of Paul's diaries and shoved it in Carla's face. Carla looked over at the old man, silently pleading for him to intervene, but he just nodded his head telling her to do as she was told.

"Helen I really don't see the point in all this what are you trying to accomplish?"

Helen sneered at Carla and then with great force grabbed Carla's hair and shoved it close to the diary.

"I am going to make you realize the truth. You want to play games and pretend you didn't know all the shit you did, then fine, I am going make you read what my son wrote. I am going to make you see all the pain you caused my Paul!"

Carla was in excruciating pain as Helen pulled on the roots of her hair and was practically sobbing as Helen pointed once more at the open page of Paul's diary.

"READ IT."

Carla began to read,

"Dear Diary, Carla has been acting strange these days…

…And I don't know how much longer she can blame it on the heat. But it's summer and I guess the summers in Dublin are too much for her to handle. The good news is she finally agreed to try for a baby. I told her she would be an amazing mother, I just think she needs to believe it.

I drove up to mums house today. It was more the same and usual stuff. Dad is teaching Ryan how to fish out back, but Ryan keeps on running away like he's afraid of the water. Needless to say it is a good laugh, dad trying to keep up with the little one. The two Toms and Andrew are as childish as ever, they decided to paint ball me as I was walking up to the house today. Hid behind their cars like little wimps and everything. I don't know how Michelle and Kara put up with them honestly. And then of course mum fussed at the sight of me, telling me I needed to take proper care of myself and that Carla shouldn't have me leaving the house like that.

I want to tell her that Carla has been acting strange, cooping herself up in bed all day. She never wants to go out, and the times that I do manage to convince her to get up and have a night out, she retreats as soon as I mention Liam and Olivia are coming. I mean of course they are coming they always come. But besides all that I ended up going to mums house alone today and when I got there she said I had just missed Liam as well. Liam also seems to be acting strange around me and I don't know if I am being paranoid, but I wonder sometimes. Because it's the way he holds her name on the tip of his tongue like it's the most beautiful name he has ever spoken, and the way I catch him looking at her, when he thinks no one is watching…I wonder if anything ever happened between them. I am even curious about childhood again, they were awfully close back then.

I voiced my concerns to Kara and Andrew; I thought my fellow married cousins could shed some light. Kara is insistent that my feelings are crazy, almost too insistent I think. And Andrew, he has never been one to take things seriously at all. So I shove the thoughts back into my mind, just hoping and praying my instincts are wrong. I mean Liam is my brother, he would never touch her…"

Knock knock

Paul shuts his diary almost immediately. He is startled as his mother stands in his door way.

"Paul, I just put the paintball shirts in washer. You need to find something decent to wear, but it's going to be chilly."

"I think I have a sweater or something in here. I mean it is my old room mum, I must've left something wearable in here." Paul walks towards his closet.

"Well change quickly, Aunt Serena made the reservations at 8. Also when is Carla getting here?"

"I don't know mum, but she promised she would make it she's just ill."

"She's always ill Paul," sighed Helen. "Your brother should be back soon. Just come down stairs soon, I made your favorite some root soup."

Paul nodded his head and quickly grabbed a sweater out of the closet, his grey sweater the one with the heart pendant on the sleeve. Carla had sewn it there so that he would know she'd always have her heart on his sleeve. He lifts it to his nose hugging it, smelling the essence of his wife. Many be his doubts were just that doubts. Carla loved him and Liam did to, they would never betray him.

"…Liam is my brother, he would never touch her." Carla had finished the entry her tears smearing the pages; she looked up at Helen once more. "Why are you doing this? What is the point?"

Helen didn't release the grip hold she had on Carla's head.

"When he came down to the kitchen that day, I told him Carla. He was my son and I couldn't watch him throw his life away for a deceitful wench like you!"

"Why couldn't you just leave it alone? This was between Paul and I. It had nothing to do with you!" Carla let out another scream as Helen shoved her face into the diary. The droplets of her tears smeared the already fading scribbling's.

"It's like a broken record, you are. Over and over again always the same old refrain." Helen began to mimic Carla in a singsong voice, " I'm sorry I never meant to hurt anyone!" She gave out a harsh laugh.

"I just don't get why you're doing this Helen. Why make me read this, why let me know that Paul knew, why now after all these years? What good is any of this other then to hurt me? You can't repeat the past."

"You can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

Carla recognized the quote immediately from The Great Gatsby. It was Helen's way of further mocking her letting her know that her words were useless. She broke down into a set of tears once more. She felt hopeless, this was psychological torture and Helen seemed to be enjoying this, like she had waited for years to get her revenge.

"Oh stop being so pitiful Carla. The Carla I knew was all mouth and could handle a fight or two. What happened to her?"

"She isn't around anymore!"

"Aww," said Helen is deadly voice. "Well isn't that tragic. Can't say it's as tragic as what I lost, two beautiful young boys so vibrant and full of life. A brother for a brother they were." Helen now sat down across from Carla staring at her with penetrating ice-cold eyes.

"And you blame me for why they aren't here? Helen listen to yourself, you are being illogical."

"Explain to me this then, why have you been wallowing in self pity for nearly eight years? You know I talk to Michelle and she tells me you feel a lot of guilt. But when you come in front of me, you can't even have the decency to show me this guilt. You think yourself something special, so proud and smug."

"Helen please…"

Helen ignored Carla; she was staring right past her into the doorway leading into the living room.

" You know a mother remembers each and everyone of her babies. The folds of their soft flesh, that unique smell for each child that is theirs alone. But with each baby there is a different kind of love. When you have your first baby, your scared and you treat them like they're an alabaster jar." Helen smiles to herself fondly before continuing, "With Paul, I was so afraid to drop him, I used to walk around the house all day with him tied to my chest. He was such a quite baby. And then with Liam, I got a little braver. I could let him out of my sight more, and I got used to the idea of being a mother then. I mean my poems during his pregnancy were a lot more cheerful a lot more optimistic. And with the last baby therein lies the one you actually have time for. I didn't have to work as much then. My poems were getting recognized. She's the one I could always take to the park, the one I let fall asleep at my side. I guess I felt guilty when they were older, I needed to prove to Liam and Paul I loved them just the same. My little babies they were angels to me."

Carla didn't say anything, she understood that Helen loved her children, each one in there own individual way and she never blamed her for it. There were many different ways to love a person, there had to be otherwise how could we love so many different people. She probably felt she had to make it up to Paul and Liam as children and adults, but then this made Michelle lose out. Carla understood the compromising position love could put a person in, that there was someone who would always be unhappy.

"He was standing in that doorway, wearing that gray sweater with the pendant heart on its sleeve, your heart. I couldn't bear to keep this secret because you see the whole thing looked like an utter sham. Your heart wasn't exposed to him at all, yours was a heart full of secrets."

Carla understood. But she wished that she could've have been the one to tell Paul. But she knew that if given the chance she probably wouldn't have had the courage. So she didn't speak, because she knew that Helen knew this as well.

"He was so radiant and he looked as handsome as ever when he told me you and him were going to try for a baby. Immediately I felt sorrow, I thought how could I explain to him, make him understand what it is to have a child. Especially since I was certain his wife would never fully love that child."

"You didn't know that Helen. You didn't know how I loved Paul."

"But you loved Liam more," Helen's eyes were red and had full on bags. She looked exhausted like all the hatred she felt had eaten her alive. It had, Carla noticed in the light of the kitchen that she had aged terribly. "Can you honestly sit here and tell me that you could have carry Paul's baby to full term? That if it was growing inside you, that voice inside your head wouldn't be longing for it to have been Liam's child?"

Immediately Carla thought of little Liam. How she adored the child so much and often found herself to be jealous of the way he adored his mother. Carla often wished sometimes that she could have been his mother. The night that Maria told her she was pregnant and the night that Liam died Carla felt sorrow. She felt pain in knowing that Liam and Carla would raise a child together.

"A baby would have complicated things. I couldn't stand by and let my son make such a horrible choice. Imagine what it would do to Liam? I thought about my precious Liam and how he would've handled it; he wouldn't have been able to stand it Carla. It would have destroyed him."

"So what," whispered Carla. "Better to destroy one son for the sake of the other. "

Carla saw it clearly now. Helen wanted to save Liam the heartbreak of having to endure Paul and her having a child, but she did so at the expense of Paul.

Helen had now started crying, this women who had been so defiant and angry had broken down into tears.

"It's like Sophie's choice. It's like the fact that a mother will always take her youngest in harms way out of the desert. It is the principle of things. My Paul was the oldest, he could fend for himself."

Carla looked at Helen with disgust. "If you hadn't said anything he wouldn't have drank that night, and if he hadn't drank he wouldn't have died!"

"No Carla, he drank because he was in denial. He didn't believe me at first. Remember you came over and into the kitchen he greeted you warmly. He told me I was telling lies about you! That I never liked you, that I always called you a serpent."

"Then why did he drink?"

"Because you didn't come with him to the restaurant! He wanted to be left alone." Helen was sobbing and convulsing gripping the table to steady her voice. "He kept saying he wanted to go back to the house, I told Andrew and Tom to take him, but he broke free and got in his car."

Carla's face sank; she knew how the story ends. "He died on his why there, didn't he?"

"NOOO!" screamed Helen. "He called me and he was in tears, he said mum I saw them together. And I asked him, Paulie who, who did you see together? And he says to me Liam and Carla, I saw them."

Carla felt like crap, she felt sick inside. She remembered everything about that night what had done again and how she was finally punished for it. She looked at Helen, her lips quivering she wanted to disappear.

"I said to him, stay on the phone with me. What did you see exactly? I asked him if he was driving, and then all he said was I saw them my own brother, my own wife… and then that was it Carla. He cut off. "