A Series of Unfortunate Events

Chapter 36

Trigger warning: talk of miscarriage

Emily wasn't sure what she wanted yet but she was sure that she wasn't going to leave her mom now. She just needed to convince her mother. "Well, Mom, I'm not sure… I'm not sure what I want really. I've been doing this for awhile now on the other side of the country. I'm isolated from my family and with everything that's been happening lately with you, I realized you could have died and I wouldn't have had a chance to say goodbye. My career, the dancing, has been exciting and enjoyable… until recently, but I think if I were to continue in ballet I'd want to do it here in LA closer to my family. If it pans out and I have, say ten more years of dancing left that would be great but, if not well, maybe it's time to change my dream to something else."

"Something else?" Sharon asked.

"Teaching ballet, maybe or I've been thinking a lot of that dance teacher that helped Ian by using modified ballet positions to strengthen his muscles. I think I'd like to consider the idea of going back to school and studying physical therapy as it relates to children and helping them overcome physical limitations."

"That's an idea, a very noble one, I might add. If that's what you want that's fine with me. I'll support you all the way. You've got money in your trust fund to help you with the schooling, but I have to confess that the feminist in me wants you to fight this thing with the ABT on principle, alone. Part of the mother in me wants you to also, but…" Sharon hesitated.

"But..?" Emily asked bumping shoulders with her mother to encourage her to finish her sentence.

Sharon bumped back and smiled sheepishly. "The other part wants her baby back home." At that point, She turned her face toward Emily and touched their foreheads together and rubbed noses with her daughter like they did when Emily was a child. "I've missed you, Em."

"I've missed you too, Mom." Emily asked, "but even though I know you'll always see me as your baby, I'm not a baby anymore."

"You'll always be my baby, Darling. If you ever have children of your own, you'll understand that no matter how old your children become, you'll always see them in your mind's eye as they were the day you gave birth to them. Tiny, innocent little humans in need of your love and protection," Sharon said enjoying for just a moment the close connection she was having with her daughter but then, remembering the threat to her family, she went on. "Of course, there's an entirely different part of the mother in me that recognizes the danger of having you here and wants you far away from it. With Philip Stroh on the loose, you're one more person that needs protection, which by the way, in my current state of health I'm not sure I'm able to give." Again her voice rose with agitation.

"Mom, don't stress about this. There's safety in numbers, right? We'll figure a way to protect everyone. The first step is telling Andy," Emily said determined to get her to understand.

Sharon nodded. "I know and I will... I will tell Andy. I promise. I'm just not ready yet. I will be, very soon like maybe tomorrow morning after I've had more time to think. With Andy's blood pressure and heart issues, I worry that he will have another heart attack from the stress."

"Well, he didn't have that problem when he went after Christian Ortiz. From what I've heard he ended up being a hero."

"He did," Sharon said with a wide smile. She had been so proud of him that day and yet so infuriated with him at the same time. Sharon shook herself from her musings to further explain her concerns about Andy. "Most times the effects of stress are cumulative, Em not just from one situation. This situation coupled with everything else that went on this month could end up being the proverbial straw."

"What about you, then? " Stress is clearly not doing you any good either. Must I remind you what you were doing when I came in here? You were crying like the world was coming to an end," Emily countered, worried more about her mother than Andy.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that Em," Sharon said feeling ashamed. She hated crying in front of people and least of all her children.

"Mom, there is no shame in crying when you need to, especially after what you've been through. It's not like you were crying like that in front of a roomful of people but even if you were that wouldn't be shameful either. All I was trying to do is point out that Andy isn't the only one that can be affected by stress. You are obviously being affected as well and that maybe if you share the stress it will be less on both of you." Emily added smugly, "isn't that what a relationship is supposed to be about? Sharing the load?"

"I suppose you're right, Em but I can't help worrying about Andy. His instincts are of the protector but what if his heart can't take it? I couldn't bear to lose him or any of my family to the likes of Phillip Stroh!" Sharon said, with a voice that had become tremulous with emotion.

Emily was taken aback by the vehemence of Sharon's abhorrence of this criminal named Phillip Stroh.
"You know, I've heard his name a lot over the years and I know he's a really bad guy but it seems like everybody thinks of him as some kind of super nemesis like he's superhuman almost."

Sharon made a sound like a harrumph and a growl. "That's not too far from the truth, Em. In my experience with the man, he is kind of like Houdini with a murderous bent. Emily, you have no idea what Philip Stroh is capable of. He's dangerous because he's a psychopath. He's a murderous sexual predator, that has no regard for human life. The worst part is that he's not only cunning, he's highly intelligent. He's managed to outsmart the LAPD and the sheriff's office on several different occasions. He manipulates the law and former clients to do his dirty work or cover his crimes for him and to make things even more complicated. He's focused on Rusty because he's a witness to one of his crimes and because of my relationship with Rusty, and also because I thwarted his attempt to get Rusty killed. He probably most likely focused on me and my entire family! It's a mess and I can't allow him to destroy my family or Andy. I love you all so much."

Emily agreed, "I know you do Mom. That's why you can't break up with him! You need him, in more ways than one."

"You're right about that Emily, I can't break up with him. I can't imagine my life without him." Sharon rested her forehead on her hands.

"We've been through sooo much and he's been so patient. He waited so long for me to even admit we were dating. We finally go on a real date and then, well everything happened with his health. Then we got through that and we move in together. Things are going great we're happy, then the bomb blasts happened. From there, one thing after another happens. Now because Rusty's mom gets killed by her former boyfriend, along with the people that were going to adopt her baby, we have a baby with special needs to raise. Don't get me wrong, I adore that baby and wouldn't have it any other way. I know I have lots of help with her but still, raising a special needs infant at our ages is going to be a challenge, especially now that my health is compromised and well, poor Andy just takes it all in stride. He never complains. He deserves so much more than he's getting from me. My attention always seems to be pulled in different directions. He always seems to get what's left after everybody else has had a piece of me," Sharon said sadly.

Emily patted her mom's hand. She was seeing how much all these series of unfortunate events were taking its toll on her mom. "Andy knows who you are, he knows what your life is like and he's okay with it. He knows what he's getting into and he doesn't care. He wants to be there for you."

"I know, I know he does. He's such a sweet man. I love him, so much. I had such plans to try to make it up to him, tonight and they didn't include telling him about Stroh being here in LA! In fact, I was planning on… Oh, um… never mind" Sharon stopped what she was about to say realizing almost too late that she was talking to Emily, not Andrea.

"You were planning to? What? Finally have sex again?" Emily said with a smirk.

"Emily Rose Raydor! That's none of your business!" Sharon was trying not to blush but failing miserably.

"Mom? I know that as my mother, you subconsciously prefer to think of me as being a thirty-year-old virgin, however, that's not the case. I lost my virginity in a hot tub in Utah while visiting the grandparents when I was seventeen and I've had other partners since, so I know how it all works. You don't have to shield me. You can even talk to me about it. I won't be shocked," she said as if she was imparting a big secret.

"Emily, No! You were seventeen? Having sex in your grandparent's hot tub?" Sharon looked shocked.

Emily rolled her eyes and started to nod then shook her head. "Yes, it was a hot tub but it was his hot tub, well at least it belonged to the unit his parents owned. They were out. It wasn't grandma and grandpas. His name was Shaun, he was also seventeen, so it wasn't statutory rape. Yes, we used a condom, yes I was on birth control and um, before you ask, it was great!" she said it like she was trying to imitate Tony the Tiger.

"I wasn't going to ask but I'm glad your first time was memorable," Sharon said with tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, I've been so emotional lately," Sharon said forlornly.

Emily looked at her. "Could you be pregnant? "

"Good heavens, no! That ship sailed and sunk years ago." Sharon looked at her daughter with amusement and shock and figured it was time she told her. "Since we seem to be spilling our inner secrets, I have one of my own. I… um never told you but I had a miscarriage and a partial hysterectomy when I was forty-five "

Emily was surprised. "Really? That was right after I left for New York. What happened? You never told me about this."

"For good reason. Your father happened. We had just moved you into your new apartment in New York. Remember? You asked him to help and for once he came through for us. After everything was moved into the apartment, your father and I left to stay at the hotel. We had dinner and reminisced a bit. This was during his sober period. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was waking up and he was in bed with me. Back then, as long as he was sober he could always charm the pants off me when he put his mind to it and I mean that quite literally. The memories of the misery he put me through when he was drunk, seemed to disappear momentarily from my memory banks but then he'd start drinking or he'd disappear and then the memories would come flooding back," Sharon said blushing. "Anyway after getting you completely situated in New York, we came back to LA and… went our separate ways, as usual. Six weeks later I was starting to feel sick in the morning, I suspected that I was pregnant and I wasn't entirely upset about it either. After all, you were in New York, Ricky was in college in San Francisco. I suppose I was suffering from empty nest syndrome and all too happy to fill that nest again but in my fourth month, I started bleeding at work. By the time I got to the hospital I had lost the baby."

Sharon wiped fresh tears away. She swallowed back her grief and finished her story. "It was a little boy. I named him Joseph Richard. He would have been thirteen in July. Oddly enough he saved my life. I started hemorrhaging, after the miscarriage and they did blood work to get my blood type to prep me for surgery. They found that I had an STD. I knew it was from your father. I knew it was him cause I hadn't been with anybody else. They took my uterus and left my Fallopian tubes. Once the surgery was over, they started me on antibiotics to get rid of the STD. So like I said, that Ship sailed and sunk a long time ago." She sighed heavily and pressed her lips together. "No, I imagine my emotional ups and downs are most likely a result of everything that's been happening in my life, lately. Not only is there is a serial killer on the loose who's after my adopted son, myself, and possibly the rest of my family , due to being caught in two bomb blasts, not to mention a series of unfortunate, and rather unbelievable events, I'm too damn weak and broken down to be effectual in protecting anybody!" Sharon rubbed the side of her forehead that wasn't sore from the graze of the bullet. She was getting a headache.

"Mother, I'm shocked you said damn. Such language," Emily said sarcastically trying to make her mother laugh.

Sharon only smiled, sadly. "Sometimes it's the only way you can express just how disgusted you feel. Sorry if I offended you," she said not picking up on Emily's sarcasm.

"Just kidding, Mom. I wish you wouldn't be so hard on yourself. You always have been." Somberly Emily said, "I'm really sorry about Joseph. Did you get to bury him?"

Sharon nodded sadly. "He's buried in the churchyard next to St. Joseph's of Nazareth's Catholic Church. I wanted him close to the church, so I could find him. He was so little, I put him in a special tiny casket that I made myself. Then Father Joseph buried him for me. I named him after Father Joseph because he helped me so much throughout my married life, especially after everything fell apart with your father. He said a mass over him, blessed him, then he dug a hole and we put him in. Then he, Father Joseph, held me while I sobbed out my grief. I go there sometimes and pray, on baby Joseph's birthday, Christmas, and Easter. Actually, whenever I get a chance to go to mass, I spend some time there."

"I remember Father Joseph. Whatever happened to him?"

"He had a heart attack and passed away about a year after we buried..." she swallowed hard, "baby Joseph. Father Stan took his place."

"How come you never told anyone? I mean it's not like he was born out of wedlock. You were married to dad at the time. So, it's not like you did anything wrong," Emily asked.

"I know but if I'd told you, you would have left New York and interrupted your dream which was just getting started by the way and come to be with me. So would have Ricky. He would have come here and skipped his finals after all his hard work getting through the first semester at Stanford to be with me. I couldn't let you interrupt your dreams to hold my hand and well, you know your father's mother would have blamed me, instead of her son, for the STD. As well as for the loss of her grandson, if she had known. They told me at the hospital the STD was the reason I lost the baby, and in fact, it was a miracle I'd even gotten pregnant let alone carried him for as long as I did. There was also the fact that, I was experiencing terrible postpartum depression, so I really didn't want anybody around to see me fall apart. Going back to work saved me, really."

Emily rubbed her mother's arm and placed her hand over top hers threading their fingers together. "Sorry, you had to go through all that by yourself, Mom."

"I guess that old adage is true. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," Sharon said with a rueful smile.

"Do you think we should go back outside? They're going to wonder what's keeping us," said Emily as they both got out of the shower stall and headed toward the bedroom.

"You're right we should but you know, I think I'd rather take a little rest. Maybe about a half hour. Hmmm, you'll come wake me when that half hours up?" Sharon asked hopefully.

Emily nodded and gave her mother a kiss before going over to the bedroom door. "Sure, but don't be surprised if Andy comes to find you."

Sharon stretched out on the bed and got comfortable. Smiling she said, "I'll be waiting."

TBC...

Thank you to all that have taken the time to leave a review they are truly appreciated. A special thank you to my devoted readers and repeat reviewers. Reviews really do help keep the motivation flowing.