Part 4
Lucas let Kate storm up to him and hug him as tightly and relentlessly as Billie had earlier that day. This was his mother, after all, and what else was he supposed to do? He'd never been good at refusing Kate anything she wanted. On one or two occasions in his life, he'd held out for a few weeks, but usually he couldn't even last a few minutes. One of the dubious "benefits" of his long stay behind bars was the way he'd been able—indeed, forced— to keep his mother at arm's length.
"It's so wonderful to see you," Kate told him over and over as mascara streaked down her cheeks with her tears. Lucas cynically remembered the time she'd told him that she deliberately refrained from using waterproof mascara so that her alleged distress would be more obvious. She'd used this trick a time or two to manipulate a friend or acquaintance (but never a business associate, for there was no higher disgrace for a glass-ceiling-breaking female executive than to cry in the boardroom).
Yes, Lucas was intimately familiar with Kate's methods. That didn't mean that he was immune to them.
"Great to see you, too, Mom," he told her, and his eyes were burning a little bit, too. Just then, he couldn't fathom why his brothers and sister hadn't invited their mother to this private party. His mind was full of thoughts of Kate telling him she'd managed to get him admitted to one of the most exclusive elementary schools in New York City; Kate taking a rare moment away from work to help Lucas feed ducks in Central Park; Kate promising Lucas that he would never lose Will's love, and that she knew Lucas would never have hit Will; Kate swearing that she would risk her own life to keep Lucas out of prison.
He had more than once considered that maybe he should have taken her up on that last offer.
"How are you feeling, Baby?" she asked at last.
"Good. Better."
"Then I am, too." She turned abruptly to Philip, Austin, and Billie, though she never quite let go of Lucas' arm. "I don't blame Lucas for this, but what do the rest of you have to say for yourselves?"
Billie and Philip glared at each other. Austin rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Lucas tried to think of something to say to get them off the hook, but he was out of practice. His mind had gone blank again.
Billie was the one who answered. "We thought that it might be less… stressful and overwhelming for Lucas if we kept it small for his first night home."
"And his mother is overwhelming and stressful?"
Billie launched into what Lucas thought was a fairly tactful response, but it was Austin and Philip's barely-concealed laughter that drew Kate's attention.
"What's funny about that?" Kate snapped at Philip.
Philip pretended to think. "Did you or did you not interrupt the most important board meeting Titan has had in ten years to complain that you saw Shawn playing catch with Ty in the park?"
"I'd think you'd be grateful for the warning! Tyler is your son, not Shawn's, and I don't know where he collected those boys they were playing with. If you want Tyler to take over Titan one day, that's not where you want him growing up. You let Shawn and Belle and that illegitimate child—"
"Do not speak about Claire that way," said Philip with such threatening overtones that Lucas was impressed that their mother didn't quit while she was behind.
"For heaven's sake, Philip, she's not here. I accept that she's Tyler's sister, but you have to remember that Claire was born while Belle was married to you, and Belle tried to pass her off as your child. You should be furious at Shawn and Belle, and instead you gave them your family's home while you live in an apartment next to your office."
"You gave the Kiriakis Mansion to Shawn and Belle?" Lucas couldn't stop himself from asking.
"It's a lease—"
"One dollar a year—"
"And it's more or less in trust for Tyler. Houses keep better when they're lived in, and I spend all my time at Titan. Claire and Tyler can use the room, and I do stay there sometimes."
"Shawn and Belle are living in your house and raising your child. Forgive me for being concerned that you've lost yourself while you're trying to take care of your father's businesses."
Philip flicked an irritated look at Billie. "I see you've been talking to Mom."
Billie raised her hands in surrender. "Oh, no. This was not me. You know I've been in London—"
"You've been in Salem with your daughter, and please stop pretending she isn't pregnant. She's showing," snapped Kate.
"Chelsea cannot be pregnant. She and Nick are separated," said Billie, enunciating each word carefully.
"And if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you. Why Nick is pretending to chase after that bimbo at the hospital is beyond me, but after Chelsea's third miscarriage…"
Lucas winced. Billie had sent him an excited letter detailing Chelsea's first pregnancy and a tearful letter when she'd lost the baby. He hadn't known that it had happened two more times.
When he returned his attention to the conversation, Kate had directed her ire back to Philip. "I would not interfere in my grandchildren's lives if my children didn't consistently make such ridiculous decisions."
"You raised us."
"Actually, she didn't," Billie and Austin chimed in in perfect unison.
Philip eyed them thoughtfully. "Now that I think of it, my nanny mostly raised me until I was about fifteen and Mom wanted me to get Dad to take her back after she cheated on him. The divorce was when I first realized who my parents were."
Kate rolled her eyes. "That's not true and you know it."
"As many people who weren't you and Dad who were in and out of that house, it might as well have been true. That's not what I want for Tyler, and that's why he's with his mother and his stepfather and his sister most of the time."
"I never thought I'd see the day that I'd wish Mimi Lockhart had turned out to be Tyler's mother."
"Well, she's not. Belle is, and she and I were married and in love when we decided to have Tyler. I still care for her."
"That's obvious. You with Belle, Lucas with Sami—I almost don't know which of Marlena's daughters did more damage in the end."
"Sami didn't do any damage!" Lucas broke in, surprising himself.
"Really? Then where are Allie and Johnny? You went to prison to protect them, and what did Sami do? She ran away to England with the man you were trying to protect them from. None of us have seen them for more than ten years."
"That's enough!" Austin interrupted at last. "Mom, you're welcome to stay if you want, but I really don't think it's appropriate for you to start attacking Sami under the circumstances."
"What circumstances? That she was so weak-minded she couldn't take care of her children and had to be put in an institution?"
"She was hit over the head!" Billie reminded Kate. "No one recovers from that kind of brain damage, and it has nothing to do with weakness of mind. I would think that after everything you went through with Curtis, you wouldn't judge Sami because the man she was forced to marry beat her into a coma with some blunt object no one ever found."
"And she didn't run away to England," Austin added. "That freak had her convinced that she'd be betraying Johnny if she didn't help him out. God, I wish I'd just smashed EJ DiMera's face in the first time I saw him."
"You and me both," muttered Philip. "Or I wish Lucas had had better aim, at least."
Something about her children's unified defense of Sami seemed to drain Kate's energy, and she collapsed into a chair, pouring herself a glass of champagne as she did.
Philip wandered in the direction of the kitchen, presumably to send the waiter out to Kate or to ensure that the cooks had not been so unnerved by the Roberts family fight that they'd all fled the building. Austin, meanwhile, attempted to placate Kate. Lucas sidled closer to Billie.
"Have you really been in London lately?" he asked in a low voice. She was worldwide head of Titan security, so she was based out of Salem; but her first job with Titan security had been in London and her husband lived there.
"Not as much as usual," she whispered back.
"Have you… seen Sami at all? Do you know if anyone has?"
Billie's eyes were bright and kind as they locked on Lucas' own. "I check on her every month, and I know for a fact that Jack Deveraux does as well. Most of Sami's family isn't in England very often, so Jack and I send them updates."
"But nothing really changes, does it?"
"She's stable. She wakes up sometimes, but she's not aware of much. She doesn't know me, she doesn't know Jack."
Lucas stared at his feet. Billie had told him the same thing in letters—so, for that matter, had his sister Jennifer. Somehow, it was different hearing the words from Billie's lips as they stood together in a five-star restaurant. Billie wrapped an arm around Lucas and gave his shoulders a squeeze. "This is why we didn't invite Mom," she told him, as if he hadn't figured it out. "The constant comments about the awful way we've decided to raise her grandchildren are one thing, and we're used to it. But we knew she wasn't going to be able to make it through the night without starting in on Sami. She blames Sami for everything that happened to you."
"Yeah. There's a lot of that going around."
"Mom and Will. No one else believes Sami went away with him voluntarily. She loved you too much."
Lucas nodded, but he couldn't bring himself to say more, or to do anything besides continue to study the tasteful cream-colored marble dance floor of the Penthouse Grille. It was all well and good for Billie to do her sisterly duty and swear that of course Sami loved Lucas, but in his heart of hearts he wondered if Will and Kate were right. There was no way of knowing exactly what had been going on in Sami's mind when she'd gone to England with EJ. She might have felt that she was protecting Johnny. She might have thought that she was honoring Johnny by helping his father sort out some sort of legal issue—that, indeed, was the explanation she had given her family.
But she might have fallen in love with EJ. That fear had danced around the fringes of Lucas' consciousness ever since EJ had arrived in their life, and he had had to wonder more than ever when he'd learned that Sami had left the country with the man who had raped her. Sami hadn't even broken the news to him herself; Kate had done that.
"Do you want us to get rid of Mom?" Billie prompted gently.
Lucas forced a fake laugh. "As if you could."
"Hey! Don't underestimate us. Really, she deserves to be escorted out when she goes too far, and comments like that about Sami are going too far."
"It meant a lot to me that you and Philip and Austin all stood up for her. It would have meant a lot to her too."
Billie sighed. "I know. We all wish things had turned out differently, but blaming a woman who… well, tonight would probably be a better celebration for you if we all stopped talking about Sami, right?"
"No." Lucas managed to raise his head. It wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be. "I don't want Sami's name to be some kind of taboo. She's Will's mother and the love of my life, and she's been in a long-term care hospital for ten years. It sucks, but I don't want everyone to freeze every time her name comes up."
"Okay." Billie looked a little happier now that that had been settled. They wandered back to the table, where Austin had carefully arranged five glasses of champagne and sparkling cider.
"Salad will be out in about five minutes," he told them. He raised his glass and gestured that the others should follow suit. "To Lucas."
"To Lucas," repeated Billie, Philip, and Kate.
The rest of the meal was almost enjoyable. Austin was funny and Kate was sardonic and Billie and Philip took a break from their ongoing argument. Will arrived in time for dessert and eager to escort Lucas to what would, at least temporarily, be his new home.
"We can walk, if that's all right with you," Will told Lucas as they left the Penthouse Grille.
"That sounds more than all right." The weird combination of ecstasy and claustrophobia provoked by the family reunion left Lucas feeling that he would be able to walk all the way to Chicago before he felt able to settle down. He hadn't seen much of Salem from the window of Philip's limousine, either, and he was interested to see more. The city had probably changed a great deal during his absence.
It didn't take long for Lucas to realize that Will was leading them into what had been the most dangerous neighborhood in Salem at the time of his arrest. The area seemed to have recovered somewhat; the cars parked along the side of the street were well cared-for, although they were far from the luxury vehicles and sports cars he was sure he would have found in Philip's garage.
"This wouldn't have been safe ten years ago," Lucas said idly.
"That's how I got the house as cheap as I did when I started my intern year. Grandma Marlena flipped out when she found out where I was living. But later she admitted that I got it at just the right time. It's perfectly safe now"
"In all your letters, you never told me you were living in a slum."
Will shrugged. "It didn't seem relevant. Anyway, Grandma Marlena had a problem with it. Grandma Kate said she lived in worse places when you were a kid."
"That's exactly why I wouldn't have wanted you living around here." He looked closely at the houses as they passed. Some were on the small side, but all looked lived-in and well-kept. Most had gardens with a few hearty flowers hanging on, waiting for one more hard frost to do them in. The sidewalk under their feet was barely visible beneath pink and yellow and green and blue chalk drawings. Some child had even sketched out a complicated game of hopscotch.
Hopscotch. Sami.
Lucas pushed the memory out of his mind. This neighborhood was full of children, and none of them were Sami or Allie or Johnny. He doubted that there were many single young professionals like Will living around here. They gravitated to condos in sexier neighborhoods.
"Why did you buy a house? You don't need the room." Lucas paused; who knew what Will had left out of the hundreds of letters he'd written in the past thirteen years? "Do you?"
Will shrugged again. "I knew I wanted to stay in Salem. And I had to do something with my money, and working all the time I didn't have that many chances to spend it. I might as well have a mortgage to make up for the student loans I don't have."
That part of the story had made it into the letters. Lucas' father and Sami's mother were both doctors, and both had been desperate to make up for the (real and perceived) ways they had failed their children by paying Will's way through medical school. Their argument over who would get the privilege of footing Will's tuition bill had reached epic proportions, but in the end they had agreed to split Will's bill and sponsor another student anonymously.
Lucas and Will turned up the driveway of a vaguely Victorian house covered with gray wooden shingles and dark green trim. Will grinned as he pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and dropped it into Lucas' hand. "The one that's round on top is for the front door. The square one is for the deadbolt, but I don't usually throw that." He beamed at Lucas expectantly, and Lucas managed to keep his hand from shaking as he slipped the key into the lock.
He stopped short of turning the key.
"Is it stuck?" Will asked anxiously. "It stuck a little when it was new, but it hasn't since—"
Lucas held up his free hand for silence. "I just want you to know that I appreciate you letting me stay here until I can figure something out."
Will's face fell. "Dad, I want you to stay with me."
"I want to stay with you, too, Buddy. But you have your own life, and I don't want to cramp your style. When I was your age—"
"You were raising a ten-year-old."
Lucas laughed. "Point taken. But if you ever need more space, or I'm in your way, please promise to let me know."
"You were just saying it's a big house for one person."
"But it might be a small house for two people if one of them is your old man. Parents take up more than their fair share of space, you know."
Will covered Lucas' hand with his own, turned the key, and pushed the door open. "Don't worry, Dad," he said. "You'll never be Grandma Kate."
TBC