8

Tony knocked at the door. He had contemplated a lot about whether he should come here, whether to have this talk really would be such a good idea. But he felt that if he didn't, things would go on like this forever. And he needed to draw a line under this affair. For good. What his daughter had told him about her state of mind earlier that day had shown him unmistakenly that each and every one of them was on a downward spiral, and if he didn't do anything about it, they would all end up being miserable for the rest of their lives.

The door opened and he looked directly into the surprised eyes of his ex-wife. It wasn't only surprise he saw in there though, but also a sick sort of self-satisfaction. Well, he would put some more emotions there for sure.

"Oh, Tony, what a nice surprise! Is that what you mean by things being O-V-E-R between us?" Kathleen asked in a provocative tone.

"I'm here for an apology," Tony said instead of answering to her unfriendly welcome.

"I wouldn't know what to apologize for," she replied defiantly.

"I'm the one who wants to apologize," Tony clarified, and now she most certainly was surprised.

"You? To me?"

"Yes. Can I come in?"

"Sure."

Kathleen stepped aside at let Tony enter her apartment, then she closed the door behind him. She was badly trying to gather her thoughts. Tony stood still in the middle of the living room, turned around and looked at her. Before he could start, Kathleen began to speak, "If it's about our daughter's birthday, Tony, you're forgiven. I know that-"

"No, it's not about Lynnie's birthday. You're definitely have to apologize for that evening. But not to me. To your daughter, ... and to Angela. But that's not what I'm here for."

"Why are you here then?" Kathleen had no idea where the conversation was leading to, and she didn't like it.

Tony took a deep inhale, then said calmly, "We need to stop this, Kathleen. We can't go on like this. It'll drive us all crazy, including you!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" He struggled to keep his temper under control. He still was very angry at her, but didn't want his mood to jeopardize his mission, so he continued as unagitatedly as possible, "How dare you walk into Angela's office and tell her that if she marries me you'll take Lynnie away from us?"

"Because that's exactly what I'm going to do, Tony! If she thinks she can have every person who's dear to me, she's mistaken!"

"Are you hearing yourself? That's nonsense! And by the way, Lynnie is old enough to make decisions like this on her own. You can't force her to move out of Oak Hills Drive."

"She's my daughter, not hers! She belongs to me!"

"Kathleen, you've tried all your life to force people to be a part of your life, but it doesn't work this way, don't you see?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You forced me into marriage, and now you want to force Lynnie into a mother-daughter-relationship which never really existed. If you don't stop manipulating people, you'll end up alone and bitter."

"As if you care about whether or not I'm alone."

"As a matter of fact I do. You once meant a lot to me - our family meant a lot to me - but with playing your dirty tricks, you destroyed everything. And if you care about your daughter just a little bit, you have to stop simply claiming her affection but start working on deserving it."

"You said you came here for an apology. I haven't heard one yet! The only thing I hear are reproaches!" 'Offense was the best defense' had always been one of Kathleen's mottos.

"Alright. I'm telling you what I came for." Tony cleared his throat. In tense anticipation of how she would react he started with what he thought needed to be said, "I want to apologize that I wasn't able to give you the amount of love you wanted from me. I apologize that I stayed in our relationship although I noticed that you were much more serious about it than I was. I apologize that I was never willing to give you my entire heart, because I had given it to someone else already."

"To Angela," Kathleen spat out.

"Yes, to Angela." Tony looked into Kathleen's eyes. "I didn't do it purpose. I hadn't been aware of it at the time we first met, Kathleen. I never meant to hurt you, yet I did. And I'm sorry."

Kathleen stared at Tony. Of all possible scenarios which had come to mind, this had been the least likely. "Well, T-Tony, ..." she stammered.

"Let me finish, please. There's more I have to tell you." He cleared his throat again. It wasn't easy but he had the feeling he had to do this, that he had to be so downright honest to make Kathleen acknowledge the fact that she had to go on with her life without him. "I had quite a few women in my life. I liked most of them, some I even loved, but there were only two I gave my heart to - one was Marie, and the other one is Angela."

"I see. Not a very nice thing to say to the woman you were once married to. May I ask to which group I belonged? To the women you liked or to the ones you loved? Or have I been just a floozy you hopped into bed with because you didn't know how to meet your sick needs with respect to your beloved boss?"

"Please, Kathleen," Tony beseeched her, "this is not helpful!"

"Who says I'm trying to be helpful? If you're feeling the urge to straighten things out between us all of a sudden, fine, but don't expect me to sit here motionlessly and listen to how you betrayed your marriage vows!"

"I didn't betray my marriage vows. And this is not 'all of a sudden'. I've tried to straighten things out many times, but you simply wouldn't listen."

"You said you'd cherish and honor me!"

"I did cherish and honor you. But do you really think that cheating on me before our marriage was a very honorable thing to do? I know that your negligence in birth control was your way of fighting for me. And you're right, I could've taken care of it, too, so I don't blame you for pulling me into marriage with getting pregnant. Part of me will always be grateful to you for having given me Lynnie. She's the apple of my eye and has enriched my life since the day she was born. And I really tried to make our family work, I hope you know and acknowledge that. You will always be a part of my life as my daughter's mother, but that's all I can offer you Kathleen!"

"Is this why you came today?" Kathleen squirmed, "To tell me that you don't see anything in me but the woman who carried and gave birth to your child? I almost died!"

"Oh come on, that's not true! Don't be so melodramatic, Kathleen! I came here because I think we both need that cut, once and for all. We're divorced for almost twelve years, for heaven's sake. I need you to let go of me, because only if you do can I marry Angela, and I want to marry her for all in the world. Don't you think you owe me that much? And I'm sure that once you let go, you'll be able to open your heart to someone else again. This I truly wish for you."

Their eyes connected, and Kathleen could see nothing but honesty and sincerity in his. Still, it was not easy for her to accept what Tony's open words meant for her, "So she's finally won after all!"

"You're totally mistaken, Kathleen! Angela's not the one who wants to get married, I am!"

"I don't care who of you wants to get married! All that matters to me is that she gets my husband and my daughter. Smart strategy to wait with scoring the final punch until you and I are alienated that much. I have to give her credit! My father taught me to never underestimate my enemies. I guess he's turning in his grave. Now she wins the big prize in both of you, whereas I once only got a fallacy of a husband."

"You're losing perspective here, Kathleen. I'm not your husband anymore, and this ain't a game! If this is how you see your life, I pity you. However, we'll all come out as losers, if you don't stop mixing up your life with ours. If you want to make up with your daughter - and I believe you do - you have to start concentrating on improving your own life instead of making Angela's and mine difficult. Lynnie won't be able to even listen to you if you don't stop interfering in the life of the three of us. Your relationship to her has to be independent from Angela and me."

"Do you really want me to make up with Gwen?" Kathleen asked incredulously, "Don't you want to have her just for yourself and this little patchwork family of yours?"

That had always been her blind spot. Kathleen knew that Tony was the better parent. He was more patient, more devoted, and more loving. She had envied his close connection to their daughter from the very first day. He hadn't minded to get up at night when she had been crying, he had never lost the patience to rock her when she had been windy, and he had been willing to give up college to take care of her. After her accident, when her tiny, fragile body had been lying in a hospital bed, all bruised and injured, he had managed to raise the money to cure her, whereas she had only been sitting at her bed, unable to do anything. He had been away overnight, but the next day he had presented her a blank cheque signed by Angela. Kathleen hadn't been able to tell what had amazed her more - the fact that he had brought up the guts to ask Angela, or that Angela had given them the money. She had been grateful, and she knew deep down that it was inexcusable that she had never thanked her; she had never thanked the woman who had saved their daughter unselfishly although she would've had every reason to turn them down. It seems as if everbody was a better parent than she was. Even Angela, who wasn't even Gwen's parent.

"Nobody wants to take your daughter away from you, Kathleen," Tony tried to reassure her. "Lynnie needs her mother."

"She's got Angela," Kathleen replied.

"Angela is not her mother."

"No? I thought she'd like to be."

"Yes, ... she'd ... like to be. She, ... well, ... we miss having a child of our own," Tony said, and the sadness in his voice moved Kathleen. She waited for the familiar feeling of satisfaction, yet to her complete surprise it wouldn't come. Instead she felt ashamed. Ashamed of having worked so hard to deny him his biggest wish, and of the woman he loved so much.

Kathleen started chewing her lower lip. "You're not taking her away from me?"

"Kathleen, I once raised a daughter without her mother, and I've seen how lost Samantha was, and still is sometimes. I don't want to see my second daughter go through the same difficulties. And Angela also knows that for a child of divorce it's important to be connected to both parents. Jonathan smarted from the lack of involvment by his father, and she wants to spare Lynnie the same disappointment. Don't you see, that we're not your enemies? Let's work together to make Lynnie's life full, carefree and a pleasure to live!"

While Tony was still working on persuading Kathleen of his altruistic motives, Angela tried to engage Lynnie into an open conversation back home in Fairfield.

"Lynnie, what's the matter? Have I done anything wrong?" Angela asked looking at her with an earnest expression.

"What makes you think that?" Lynnie knew exactly what did, but tried to sound clueless.

"I have the feeling you're avoiding me," Angela said, and the worry in her eyes as well as in her voice hit Lynnie.

"I'm not avoiding you!"

"Oh, come on, Lynnie! You cancelled our last shopping trip the very last second, you leave the room as soon as I enter, and you've hardly talked to me since you found out about your father's and my history. I'd call that avoiding!"

She was right. She was absolutely right. Lynnie had been avoiding Angela. Not on purpose, or because she had done something wrong, but because Lynnie felt so guilty. She didn't mean to hurt Angela, but since she had learned about the events before and shortly after she had been born, she felt uneasy in Angela's presence, for her mere being had brought so much pain and sorrow into Angela's life. She missed their good relationship though. Lynnie had always liked Angela a lot, from the day she had first met her. During the ten years she had been living in her house, they had shared hundreds of carefree moments, either together with Tony or just the two of them, and it kept amazing Lynnie that she had never sensed the slightest kind of resentment from Angela's side, ever. How was that possible? She had to hold her responsible for having lost so many years with the love of her life, hadn't she?

"Angela, can I ask you something?"

"Anything," Angela said. She wanted to clear the air between them. She missed the light, carefree mood the teenager used to spread within the house. And she had a hunch that the uneasiness between them might be based on a misconception.

"Ever since I've heard what my mother did to you, I'm asking myself what you see in me, Angela."

"What I see in you? I don't understand."

"What am I for you? Your boyfriend's daughter? The offspring of a woman you despise? The person who destroyed your life?"

"You didn't destroy my life!" Angela clarified.

"Of course I did! Dad left you because my mother was pregnant with me, and you missed your chance to have your own baby with him! You must hold me accountable for it! You must!"

Angela stared at Lynnie. Her heart almost stood still at the notion that this adorable girl blamed herself for something which wasn't her fault at all. Was that the reason why she had distanced herself from her?

"Sweetheart, nothing of what had happened between your father and me was your fault! You were a baby! An innocent baby! How could I ever hold you accountable for anything?"

"But-"

"No but!" Angela cut Lynnie off. "We, the adults were responsible for what had happened, but certainly not a newborn!"

"I understand that my mother and Dad were responsible. But you?" Lynnie asked.

"Well, ..." Angela sighed. She still didn't understand why she had simply stood back, watching Kathleen taking Tony away from her. "I was angry at your father that he had gotten involved with another woman, but didn't do so much against it. Did you know that when he confessed to me that he had spent the night with your mother I didn't ask him to end things but told him that maybe we should meet other people in order to find out whether we belonged to each other? That was so stupid! I should've told him that I loved him and wanted to be with him. But I was too proud to fight for him. Your mother wasn't. She fought for the man she wanted."

"But she didn't play fair!"

"True, but I didn't take part in the game at all. I left the field to her, and that was something I blamed myself for a long time. Love isn't something which drops into your lap, Lynnie, you have to fight for it. I thought if he really loved me, if he really wanted to be with me, he'd come back to me eventually."

"He did," Lynnie said, "only years later."

"You're right. But these were dreadful years. Lost years. Years I look back at with much regret."

"I'm so sorry." Lynnie laid her hand on Angela's lower arm and squeezed it compassionately.

"Well, I'm over it now. I've accepted that I also played a part in how things turned out. It helped me to let your father back into my life. And I'm glad I did."

"Oh, so am I, Angela! You've made him so happy, and I ..." Lynnie stopped in the middle of the sentence. She was about to enter dangerous emotional territory again.

"You what?" Angela probed. She knew that she had to get to the bottom of Lynnie's troubled mind.

"I was happy here, too," the girl finally admitted.

"You were? What's that supposed to mean?"

Lynnie stared at Angela. She had made a silent decision to put aside her own needs in favor of the woman who had done the very same for her years ago.

"I'm going to live with my Mom."

"You what?" Angela screamed.

"I want you to marry Dad, Angela. You two deserve to be married. Finally! You didn't marry all these years ago because of me, and I don't want to be the reason once more for why you don't marry. If Mom wants me to live with her should the two of you get married, so be it. I can do that for two years. Then I'll be 18 and I can do whatever I want. I'll move out and never talk to her again."

Angela gasped, leaned back in her chair, and stared at Lynnie with saucer-eyes. "You can't be serious," she whispered.

"I've never been this serious in my life before."

"You don't really believe that your father and I will let you to do this," Angela said hoarsely, her eyes filling with tears.

"You have to!" Lynnie looked defiantly at Angela.

"No, Sweetheart," Angela said in her soothing voice. She leaned forward and took the girl's hands in hers. "Don't you know that we want you to live with us? Your father would suffer like a dog if he hadn't you, ... and I would miss you, too. Do you really think we would base our happiness on your misery? What kind of pa- ..." Angela startled a bit about the word lingering at the tip of her tongue, but then she spoke it out with a warm smile on her face, "What kind of parents would we be, if we really took this into consideration?"

"But I want to pay you back some of what you did for me, Angela! Don't you understand? I owe it to you!" Lynnie tried to explain her motives.

"I do understand, Lynnie. And I'm deeply touched by what you want to do for me. But haven't you been listening? You don't owe me anything! You're not responsible for anything which happened! You were a baby! An adorable, beautiful, innocent baby! When I first saw you in your father's arms two days after you were born, I wished you had been mine. I saw the love for you in Tony's eyes," Angela's voice was all shaky now, "the pride, and the happiness. And when you came here, after being cured from your accident, seizing this house like a whirlwind, you enchanted me once again! You're a wonderful, charming and endearing young woman. Don't you know that I love you?"

"How can you love me?"

"I can love you because we are family! That's something your father taught me, actually." Angela had to think back to when she had been fired by Wallace & McQuade and Tony had eased her fear for the future by telling her they would go through the difficult time together, as a family. "You don't have to be related necessarily to be a family. Family isn't about blood-relationship, it's all about caring for each other and being there for each other. Don't you think we've done that for the past ten years?"

"Yes," Lynnie whispered.

"Good!" Angela brushed a tear off the teenager's cheek. "So listen, Lynnie, when I marry your father, ... I-I mean, ..." Angela cleared her throat and her heart skipped a beat. Where had that come from? Had she just said when I marry your father? Until now it had been a matter of 'if', if I marry Tony'. Since when was it a matter of only 'when' and not of 'if' anymore? "Uhm, ... I mean if I ever marry your father, ..." Her voice broke again. She frowned and wasn't able to finish her sentence. Angela had wanted to tell Lynnie that she wouldn't be forced to live with her mother in case they got married, that she was old enough to decide where she wanted to live, that her mother couldn't make her live with her against her will, ... but she wasn't able to think this thought through anymore. Her head was spinning and she became giddy.

"Angela? Are you alright?"

"Yes, ... No."

Lynnie smiled. "You just said when I marry your father!" Her smile became even wider. "So, have you made up your mind?" She raised an eyebrow and looked at Angela quizzically.

"Huh?"

"Are you finally going to marry him?"

"What would you say if I did?" Angela asked.

"You'd be my step-mother," Lynnie noted matter-of-factly.

"Yes, I guess I would."

"I'd like that."

"You would?"

Lynnie nodded. They stared at each other, then both women simultaneously started to cry.