The interior of the studio had begun to more closely resemble an orangery.
An orangery attached to a post office box, where the letters continuously arrived.
She did her best to ignore them. She succeeded, initially.
The meal cart was harder to ignore.
Along with the card that sat upon it.
You asked that I leave you alone. Despite my severe reservations, and they are extremely severe, I agreed.
However, you neglected to specify whether that included mail.
Before you jump to conclusions, I am not sending this bouquet and meal cart to you to gloat about my wealth or try to buy your love (though as I am worth millions, only the fruit was purchased at affordable prices to support the local markets.)
Brenda loved the local markets.
The bouquet is to ensure I will remain on your mind during this short time we are apart. The meal cart is because you skipped breakfast and headed straight to the studio from wherever you are staying.
Fuck; she had skipped breakfast, hadn't she?
She hadn't even thought about food the entire morning.
She grabbed a yogurt out of the break room fridge, though the various foods on the cart did tempt her far more than yogurt could.
And you forgot your regimen, so you'll find that on the cart, as well. Hopefully the selected appetizers will lessen the taste of the prenatal.
They did appear to be tasty appetizers.
Now, for the bouquet.
First, yes, I consulted with Iris on the flowers and their meanings; I don't just have this knowledge floating around. You may or may not be surprised to know that Iris does. For a woman who can't garden worth a damn, it's almost shocking how much she knows.
Brenda tried to not laugh.
Tried.
Your mother, however, is an expert gardener, and perhaps knew even more than Iris. It was an interesting trip to the shop with both of them, that's for sure.
Brenda imagined Dylan listening to Iris and Cindy drone on about flowers. She wondered if he would have done that for anyone.
No, I wouldn't have done that for just anyone.
How the hell did he always do that?
You moved to Beverly Hills in August, a girl from Minnesota who caught everyone's eye at West Beverly, yet somehow showed an interest only in the loner boy who had become a favorite subject of the West Bev rumor mill and who had a thing for girls in tank tops with fairly ridiculous dye jobs. We, two Americans born and raised who had both aspired to escape the code, lived together for three years in the UK, which were probably the best three years of my life. I had been to London a few times before, but seeing a city I love through your blue-tinted eyes was somehow different, as if you had taken all the magic of London and managed to amplify it as only you can do. Hence the gladiolus.
Red, white, and blue gladiolus.
Two different flags of two entirely different countries, with the same three colors.
The arrangement reminded her of the Fourth of July.
She couldn't bring herself to trash it; yet, she couldn't look at it, either.
She left the bouquet at the desk of the secretary.
When Brenda returned to her work station, the bouquet was sitting there, waiting for her.
She pushed it to the far corner of the table and concentrated on highlighting the newly written lines in her script.
On their third day apart, another note with another bouquet greeted Brenda when she entered the studio.
I first saw you in October, which happens to be my birth month, but we didn't meet each other until November, which happens to be yours. Assuming our daughter sticks to her planned due date, we will be welcoming our little darlin' in June. Cosmos fit quite nicely with chrysanthemums and honeysuckle, wouldn't you say? The cosmos, I have been told, were imported straight from Mexico.
She had to admit that the flowers did go well together and the chosen colors certainly brightened up the studio.
It was on the fourth day that she almost looked forward to whatever arrangement he had come up with next.
Almost.
It arrived later that afternoon, with the secretary bringing the bouquet directly to Brenda.
Our first date was in January. Our first dance, the first time we were together in the way we have been innumerable times since, was in May. It was an April day in London, a quite freezing snowy April day, when you decided that London had brought us back together for a reason, and I think it's safe to assume that part of that reason is bouncing away in your belly as you read this.
She was. Brenda paused from sniffing the arrangement of multicolored carnations, hawthorn, and daisies to relieve herself before turning her mind to work.
On her break, Brenda read the newest note, attached to yet another bouquet.
December is, as you said, when you learnt that our love had created our miracle, a miracle I hope you have been continuing to photograph this week.
Brenda shot a quick glance to the Polaroid camera that had snapped her stomach only an hour before.
She looked at the Polaroids tucked away in her purse, two for each day, all banded together to send to Dylan.
Finland brought us back together in February, and in March, we were shown that your instinct about our daughter was correct. Did you know that narcissus is known to symbolize hope? When you were working on getting to know me anew, you said for me to hold onto my hope. It's blossomed into more of a certainty now, a certainty that as you read this, you're contemplating returning home. Still, I don't believe I have ever hoped for something as much as I hope that I am right, and you have taken a break from your script to imagine the life we can have together when you admit how much you want me.
Dammit.
I never thought to put narcissus with daffodils and violets, but I think it works. Then again, I didn't know there was a flower called narcissus until the florist pulled it off of the shelves. I like to think I'm slightly less conceited than Narcissus, but we are alike in that we never returned anyone's affection.
Until you showed up at my locker and changed not only my entire life, but also my ability to care about anything (or inability, before you and your brother came.)
If Narcissus had come across a woman called Brenda with the constellations waltzing in her eyes and a gigantic desire to help people who most would consider a lost cause, perhaps his dismal fate would have been different.
Her phone held a number of texts when she next checked it.
She went through and deleted them, one by one.
Brandon and Dylan, the liars. Steve and David; they had both been aware of the lie. Valerie, the bigger liar. Clare…had Clare known?
Brenda deleted Clare's text, too. Even if Clare had been ignorant of the entire scheme, Brenda wouldn't put her in the position of having to explain to Steve why Brenda had responded to Clare and not to Steve.
Luca. She couldn't respond to Luca, not when he was Clare's friend. Kai posed the same issue.
Alina and Kelly; they would both try to defend Brandon.
Donna.
Brenda stilled her trigger-happy finger.
Donna.
Did you know? she texted Donna.
I knew you were pregnant before Dylan knew, Donna replied.
Did you know about Val's lie?
No. That was as much news to me as it was to you.
"Does anyone else know I agreed to meet with you?" asked Brenda as she bit into her scone.
"I kept it quiet, just like you asked." Donna sipped from her smoothie. "They aren't going to stop messaging."
"I just don't want to hear whatever excuses they've come up with," said Brenda. "Dylan swore up and down he had told me everything, every last detail. But he didn't. He'd kept lying."
"Why do you think they did it, Bren?"
"Lied?"
"Valerie, faking a pregnancy. Brandon, going along with it. Dylan -"
"Dylan acting like he'd just suddenly figured out he was her father, when he hadn't known about the pregnancy at all."
"Is it really such a bad thing that he didn't?" asked Donna. "You spent weeks working on convincing me that I could do better than Noah."
"You can," said Brenda.
"You helped me face that I was lying to myself every time I thought we could make it work," said Donna. "Now it's your turn to face how you've been lying to yourself."
"Donna…"
"You lied to yourself and told yourself that Dylan had only started taking care of you because of her, that his love for you was due to her. Doesn't this prove that was never the case?"
Donna unfortunately had a point.
"Brandon and Valerie still lied," said Brenda.
"Because they're terrible people?" asked Donna.
No, thought Brenda, because they were trying to protect me.
She voiced that thought aloud.
"Is it so awful to have people who love you that much?" asked Donna.
"I suppose not," said Brenda.
"You don't have to talk to Dylan, you know. You could just pick up and not say anything, so he isn't constantly jumping up every time Brandon's phone rings."
"Is Dylan doing that?"
Instead of allowing Donna to respond, Brenda redirected their conversation.
"Tell me more about this D'Shawn," she said. "Would I like him?"
"You would," said Donna, "a lot."
By the fifth day, Brenda's resolve had begun to slip.
July is the first time we tried living together, said the note attached to a vase of only larkspurs, with a small bowl beside it that held a single water lily. As you have heard, it didn't go too well. But I'd say we make the perfect roommates now; or, more accurately, bedmates. Is your bed as cold as ours is?
Colder, she thought.
Her first night had been booked in a hotel, with a mattress that would have been more comfortable had it not been incredibly lonely.
Her second night and every night since had been at the home of the secretary, who had offered her guest room when she had seen Brenda standing outside of the hotel.
Looking lost, or so it had been claimed.
Do you wake up with your phone at a low battery, too, because it's sat closer to your pillow than to the charger?
On the nightstand, where it could charge as she debated over calling Luca, Dylan, or neither.
Have you arranged a helicopter tour of Helsinki to get a birds-eye view of the city in the event that you might spot your love walking its streets?
Have I?
Might have.
Or might've just considered the idea.
That night, Brenda picked up Dylan's call without uttering a sound, and held the phone close to her stomach.
The sound of Dylan's voice both calmed and excited their child.
Brenda set her mobile on the nightstand when he tried to speak with her.
She didn't reply; nor did she hang up.
She just let him play the chords on his guitar as he sang.
"…Whenever I find myself too all alone / I can make believe I've never gone / I never know where I belong / Sing me home."
On the sixth day, the day before their thirty-six week scan, Brenda considered rescheduling.
That bouquet was accompanied by a package.
You snored last night, by the way. The cutest little snore. It was the first night this whole week when I didn't have to lie awake, wondering how you were.
And that brings me to September, the month you decided we were better off as close friends. I half-agree. No one ever said close friends; nay, the best of friends, can't be lovers. Except I don't want us to be just friends, just lovers, or friends with benefits. And I know you want us to be more, too. Because we are more. We'll always be more. There's no use in either of us continuing to deny that our beds are lonely when one of us is absent from them.
Or that our bodies don't ache for each other when they are apart.
Her body did ache, but that had become the norm in her last month of the pregnancy.
She couldn't assume it had anything to do with missing Dylan.
If she did miss Dylan, which hadn't been confirmed.
I debated between asters and morning glory. Ultimately, these asters more closely resemble the ones painted by Monet in 1880, the painting we saw hanging up in a bookshop in London the day you invited me to move back in with you on a more permanent basis. It's also the day we talked about visiting Giverny, which we can still do.
We have been visiting bookshops together ever since, and it was our bookshop where my girl unknowingly flipped the page back into my life.
Reading a copy of a play I had taken you to on our first Valentine's together.
Of which we can have many more.
Because with you, my hobbies are not only shared; they are yours, and you enjoy them just as much.
Surfing included.
The world awaits us, Bren, and we can see it together.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
You, me, our family.
Just come home.
Please.
I wouldn't call it a lie, but I wasn't entirely truthful when I told you that you're the only one who can stop this.
Because if I couldn't stop the world continuously pulling us back to each other, there is no possible way you can.
It doesn't matter if you never remember. I remember enough for the both of us. Our love is a memory that cannot be dislodged, even if the details have been coloured over. Our daughter is a product of that love, and she is the only memory we need.
I will be waiting for you this evening in our bookshop, right beside the section of plays that returned you to me. Outside of that shop is where you permitted a stranger to hold you without issue, which means that you were drawn to me from the jump, as we were previously drawn to each other from the moment we met. That, darlin', tells me that even amnesia can't demolish what we have, which means this certainly can't. I will continue to wait in the shop each evening, until I see you pop 'round the shelves.
At the very least, I will meet you outside of hospital in two days for our scan.
To hold your hand as I watch you, watching the captured movement of our soon-to-be tangible memory.
In all my life, I've never known a better view than that.
And I've seen some pretty incredible views, usually with you.
All my love,
Dylan
P.S. Enclosed in the package is the completed manuscript I will be sending in to publish for our daughter. If you get a moment, I want you to be the first to read it.
P.P.S. Enclosed is also the next half of the play. Whoever said writing is cathartic wasn't kidding.
P.P.P.S. Do you feel as empty as I do? As Val does? As your brother does? If you are wondering how I was able to forgive them for trying to keep me in the dark about our baby, it's because I knew they had done so to protect you. I will apologize for many things, Bren, but I will never apologize for anything that tries to protect you. The three of us haven't always done that. I hope you know now that we would travel to the end of the world and back again if it would protect you. Brandon did, when he went to Australia, when he made that promise to you. I could've been in Australia. I could've been beside you. I could've been right beside you as we both found out about her. I wasn't. Brandon was. B was convinced that I would walk out on you and our child, because I wasn't around when I should've been. I can't blame him for thinking I'd never be around. Our history shows that I have walked out before, but our history also shows that we are a force to be reckoned with when we are together. It's the weight of that force that had me asking Iris, of all people, what she knew about flowers.
I asked my mother about flowers, Bren. I'm never going to get her to stop talking about them now. It might help a bit if you ask her to.
P.P.P.P.S. I have bought the most recent phone book and paid a translator to bookmark the pages of the businesses that rent out cranes to reckless individuals.
Particularly, one reckless man in love with one seriously obdurate woman.
Brenda took that evening to read both the manuscript and the next half of Dylan's play.
She rescheduled the scan for a late afternoon appointment that would allow her to consider whether she should reschedule completely.
She asked that Dylan be informed of the reschedule.
Precisely a week after the hearing, Brenda was called into her boss' office.
"Is this about the bouquets?" she asked. "Would you prefer if I trash them?"
"Actually, they've given us an idea for a new script," said her boss, "but they're not the reason we called you in here."
"Is it my work?" asked Brenda. "I haven't been working hard enough? I can work harder. I'll up my hours, do as many as you need."
"On the contrary; you've been working far more hours than you need to, and we noticed that you've been been looking unwell for the past several days."
"I feel fine," said Brenda, which wasn't entirely truthful.
"Nevertheless, for the purpose of your health, we are starting your maternity leave early. Effective immediately."
"But my job…"
The role, Brenda was told, would remain hers.
All week, her work had served as a distraction.
What would be her distraction now?
Perhaps she could up her hours with Donna's company.
Collecting the various bouquets, Brenda wondered if she should drop them off at a hospital, for critical care patients to enjoy.
"Can I help you with that?" asked Essi, the secretary Brenda had come to know well.
"They're concerned over how many hours I've put in this week," said Brenda. "I had to go on mat leave. I don't even know what to do with myself now."
"You could continue to stay with me," said Essi, "or you could think about heading off to that man who sends such wonderful bouquets."
"Would you like them?" asked Brenda.
"Oh, I couldn't possibly," said Essi.
"The hospital might like them, or perhaps a shelter."
"Do not be so hasty to discard such beauty."
Essi helped Brenda to bundle up the bouquets for secure transport.
"Kiitos," said Brenda, a thank you in Essi's native tongue, "for everything."
"Take care of yourself," said Essi, "just as much as you take care of that baby."
"That baby…shit! The scan."
She had missed the scan.
Essi offered Brenda a lift. Brenda opted to take the bus, a bus she hadn't had a reason to use since the day of the hearing.
"You're not the usual bus driver," she noted in Finnish when she stepped in to insert her change.
She had been practicing, with Essi.
"The usual bus driver is incapacitated," she was told, in Finnish. "Too much of the drink on his week away, I'm afraid."
"I wasn't aware Jorma drinks," said Brenda. "I do hope he's alright."
She seated herself in her usual spot, watching the city blur by as she reached into her purse to withdraw her book.
Her hand brushed against her mobile.
She pulled it out.
You missed the scan, said the screen. The gate comes down tomorrow.
"That won't be necessary," she told him, "and I'd much prefer it if you didn't threaten destruction of my workplace's property."
"You're talking to me," he said, his voice markedly more husky than she had expected, as if he had spent the entire week inhabiting a hermit who had never once left their bed.
Had she not been aware of Dylan's trips to the florist, the post office, and wherever else, Brenda may have been more inclined to believe he had stayed in bed.
"I didn't mean to miss the scan," she said. "I got caught up in something and neglected to notice the time. Can you reschedule for us? Tomorrow should work."
"Does that mean you're coming home?"
She ignored the question, instead saying, "twelve types of flowers. You sent twelve types of flowers, a meal cart, a manuscript and the next half of the play. Altogether, that makes sixteen. Sixteen, because we fell in love at sixteen?"
"I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on."
"The secretary had never heard of gladiolus."
"Neither had I. It was my sponsor's suggestion."
"Arvo?"
"Yeah, Arvo."
Dylan remaining in contact with his sponsor sounded promising, like Brenda hadn't thrown a wrench into his sobriety as she had dreaded.
Had Dylan kept up on his meetings? she asked.
"Not at first," said Dylan.
On the first night, he had been tempted to stop into a bar and purchase a beer.
"One drink," he said. "I told myself it'd just be one drink, one drink to help me deal with the lonely night that lay ahead."
But Dylan had known that one drink wouldn't stay one drink, and the next thing he knew, he had found himself getting into Arvo's car.
"I slept at his place that night. Asked him to take my wallet so I couldn't have anything to buy a drink with. Arvo suggested I write out what I was feeling."
"Hence the letters."
"Hence the letters," Dylan echoed.
"The flowers? Were those Arvo's idea, as well?"
"The gladiolus was. Everything else was all me, with help from our mothers."
"I would have liked to have seen Iris talking your ear off about flowers."
"You still can. She still is."
Dylan had remained at Arvo's for a couple of nights and may have continued to do so, had David not texted him about Valerie.
"What about Val?" asked Brenda.
"Let's just say she didn't take the verdict too well and convinced herself she held sole responsibility for it."
"She didn't," Brenda breathed through the jackhammer drilling away at her throat, "she didn't try to…"
"Silver thinks so. Val insists otherwise."
"I hurt her, didn't I?" Brenda wiped at her face. "And Brandon. And - and you. All of you. How can I come back when I hurt all of you?"
"Because we don't care about that, Bren. We want you to come back. We've missed you. I've missed you, more than anyone else."
"I think," Brenda released an elongated sigh, "I think I may have missed you, too. My bosses made me start mat leave."
"Sounds like you'll be bored then, and quickly."
"I think my boredom started the second I left the studio."
"Then come home. Please."
"You don't just mean the building, do you?"
"Why, Ms. Walsh, you are catching on."
Brenda pressed Dylan for the Judge's verdict. She didn't want to be a burden, said Brenda, and her inability to remain seated in the courtroom had caused her to become a burden to Brandon.
"You have never been and will never be a burden of any sort, to any of us," said Dylan. "Especially not to me."
"If I come home, Brandon will have no choice but to try to get guardianship of me if he wants me to continue being around, and that's far more responsibility than he should take on."
"He's been your primary caregiver since December."
"It wasn't supposed to be a permanent arrangement."
"We'll work it out. We might even be able to get Jim on board with the idea."
Brenda doubted that.
It was clear that Dylan would continue to refute her excuses.
Brenda did miss their bed.
Perhaps his arms, as well.
Dylan asked where Brenda had been staying.
"A hotel, the first night," she said. "I had every intention of remaining there, but the secretary offered for me to stay with her."
"Essi?"
"Yes, Essi."
"Glad Essi offered you her place, but there's a nice home here with all of your things that are just waiting for you to come organize them after Val put them out of order."
Dylan knew exactly how to tempt Brenda.
"I suppose you can have Val meet me at the bus stop," she said. "I should probably talk to her. And then I guess I can talk with you and Brandon to figure out where we go from here, after I reorganize the place."
"You're on the bus? Bren, I could have just driven you."
"I had to see someone."
Brenda was on her way to Luca's, to thank him for the diversion he had brought her and to tell him that she no longer required their experiment.
It was not a conversation she wanted to have with Luca through digital communication.
"It was a plane and a train that initially separated us, so a bus can somewhat bridge the gap," said Brenda. "Somewhat." She stretched out the edges of her shirt. Its fabric cascaded onto a layer of sweat that dripped upon her back. "How hot is it outside?" she asked.
"It's in the high fifties. Great night for a moonlit stroll on the beach, if you wanna head over later."
It didn't feel like the fifties.
It seemed closer to the high nineties, though as Brenda's body temperature had often become unbalanced in that last trimester, Brenda didn't think it necessary to tell Dylan how fucking boiling it was.
"We can discuss it," she said.
Lyrics came over the radio, lyrics that snagged her ear.
"It's that song again." She clutched at her mobile.
"What song again?"
The song she had heard during a music session. The song that had played when Dylan had unzipped her dress.
A searing pain ricocheted through Brenda, starting in her head and streaking down to her upper, then lower, back.
Dylan. Singing, badly. Hawaiian shirt.
Had he danced in a Hawaiian shirt?
"Feelings," Brenda sang away from her mobile. "Nothing more than feelings." Her hands shook as she returned to her phone. "Did we - Dylan, have we ever been to Hawaii?"
"We haven't," said Dylan, "but I'll take you. If you want us to go. Iris would be thrilled."
"So I never saw you sing in a Hawaiian shirt? And cosmos. There were cosmos."
Dylan's next words may as well have been released through a multitude of aquatic bubbles, the way they tumbled into Brenda's ear to combine with her migraine.
"Bren, are you getting a memory?"
"A contraction." Brenda gripped onto the seat in front of her.
"What?"
"Dylan." Brenda's head tilted forward. Her eyes squinched. "Babes, I think I'm - I think I'm getting a contraction."
"What'd you say? Baby, you're cutting out."
"Contraction," said Brenda. "I'm. Feeling. Contractions."
"Bren?" Dylan hollered. "Dammit! Hello? Brenda! You still there?"
"Dylan!" she called out over and over.
"I lost her," said Dylan.
"What do you mean, lost?" asked Brandon.
Brenda shouted out that she could hear them, but Dylan rattled on.
"I mean, I fucking lost her!" he said. "She - I think she was starting to remember Ba -"
The line faded.
Brenda tried the number for Emergency Services.
Dead air.
Brenda brought her mobile up to her face. Her service lowered from minimal to none.
She had allowed herself to become too distracted by her conversation with Dylan that she had completely missed her stop for Luca's.
Luca must have lived near an area with poor reception.
Brenda pulled down the cord for the next stop.
The bus kept going.
She continued tugging the cord, up and down on a repeat.
She looked at her carefully wrapped bouquets, and perhaps instinctually dropped two out the crack in the window.
The bus came to an abrupt, unplanned halt in a location Brenda didn't recognize.
"Okay." Brenda grasped onto her abdomen and looked at her watch. "It's just you and me, sweetheart." Her voice came out much more relaxed than she felt as she tried to rub out her abdominal cramps. "You, me, and the bus driver. Now, Mommy needs you to stick to six contractions, okay? You have one hour for six contractions, then you're gonna wait four more weeks for the seventh. Braxton Hicks only. Mummy knows she's been mad with Daddy, but she isn't doing this without him. I'm not giving birth on a bus, and you aren't coming for at least one more week."
Brenda called out to the driver. More silence greeted her.
Rising from her seat, Brenda hunched over as she dragged herself towards the front.
"Excuse me," she said in her best Finnish, "I believe the cord may be broken. This isn't my stop."
It was then Brenda noticed the driver, slumped over the wheel with the engine still on and the parking brake engaged.
She touched the driver's neck.
Ice cold to the touch.
Brenda checked the heater.
Stuck on the highest setting.
She refused to panic.
She had to get to Dylan.
She had to ask him what he thought she may have remembered.
If he had sung to her in a Hawaiian shirt.
If the same song had played in a moonlit ice-skating rink.
If he had sung it to her then.
Brenda determined she would find her own way home.
Even if it meant driving the bus herself.
She didn't think she had driven a bus before.
Her only license was for the United Kingdom.
Expired.
She turned the keys in the ignition.
The fucking petrol gauge was running on empty.
What kind of a bus driver would let their petrol gauge go empty?
The kind that wasn't a bus driver, Brenda realized.
The kind that had left the engine and heater running as smoke emitted from the hood.
Forget driving the bus.
Brenda had to get off of the bus, away from whomever it was that sat in the driver's seat.
She would have to walk along the side of the highway until she came across help.
If that was her only option, she would take it.
Brenda searched for the lever to open the door.
It wouldn't open.
Neither would the side door, nor the emergency backdoor.
Or perhaps they all opened, to one whose strength had not faltered.
Brenda could only hope for a miracle and, in the meantime, a short round of irritating Braxton Hicks.
Nothing more than slightly painful Braxton Hicks.
Braxton Hicks weren't supposed to be painful.
But they could be, sometimes.
"Don't you dare puncture Mummy's sac," Brenda told her stomach as she searched around the bus for a fire extinguisher, a rock, a brick or anything that could break a window.
If the fucking heat would subside for one second so her vision could remain intact.
Then perhaps her head would stop clanging.
If her head stopped clanging, maybe her stomach would, too.
Starting with the nausea that threatened to consume her, combined with an intense bout of dizziness that gave Brenda a moment's pause.
Only a moment.
She would rest for just a moment.
Then she'd shatter the damn window.
xx
She had become a burden.
None of them had labelled her as such, but surely they could all see that had it not been for her, Brenda wouldn't have left.
That in itself made her a burden to the people who had repeatedly reached out to Brenda, without response.
Emails. Texts. Calls. Instant messages. Handwritten correspondence.
They had tried every form of communication imaginable, all to no avail.
Valerie thought that surely Kelly must have blamed her; yet, Kelly's attentions merely set on caring for Brandon.
"You can say it," said Valerie through her intense migraine and cup of a strong brew. "Go ahead and call me inhuman. You had no problem calling me it to David, and that was before I trashed my best friend's life."
"You're a bitch, Val," said Kelly.
"Tell me something I don't know," said Valerie.
"I wasn't done," said Kelly. "You are a bitch, but we both know just how much of a bitch I can be, too. And when I told David you were inhuman, that might have been one of my bitchier moments."
"Only bitches trash their best friend's lives."
"Valerie, if trashing your best friend's life means lying to a guy you know has hurt her before and you're convinced might hurt her again because you are trying to protect her and her child, then I can only hope Donna would think to trash my life in the same way."
"You don't have to try to cheer me up, Kel."
"The men I love love you," said Kelly. "Brandon, David, Steve. They all love you. And if they can love you, then maybe I could've given you more of a fair shot. Maybe I still can. If Bren can care about you as much as she does, if Clare can; if even Dylan can, then I can try a little harder to see you as you have become in your present, rather than who you've been in your past."
"Not that I haven't given you plenty of reason to hate me," said Val.
"Likewise," said Kelly. "We aren't even fighting over Brandon or Dylan anymore, are we?"
"I haven't thought about Brandon that way in what feels like years."
"You think of my brother that way, don't you?"
"I wish everyone would stop asking me that."
"You really scared him yesterday, Val."
They were just sleeping pills, Valerie wanted to say, but she wasn't looking for Kelly to scold her about mixing wine and sleeping pills the way David had scolded her.
Do you really want us to see you lowered into the ground, Val? he had asked. Because that's what drinking wine with sleeping pills will get you. You've got one foot in the fucking grave, like you're just waiting to be pushed in.
You're overreacting, David, she had said groggily. I just needed a little help sleeping.
If you need help sleeping, get a sound machine, he said. And I'll resume sleeping in here with you until I'm satisfied you aren't trying to harm yourself.
Valerie had asked why David cared.
David said Val knew why; she knew exactly why, and he didn't have to keep telling her for it to sink in.
"Do us all a favor and don't go trashing your life just because you're convinced you trashed Bren's," said Kelly. "No one needs that kind of stress right now."
"Is this the part where you're gonna not-so-subtly encourage me to go to AA?"
"This is the part where I'm telling you that Valerie Malone didn't give up because of a personalized attack from a vicious attorney before, and she won't give up because of one now."
"Thanks, Kel," said Val. "But this doesn't mean -"
"- we're friends," finished Kelly. "I know. We're just two people who got trapped loving the Walshes, and might have to forever deal with each other because of it."
"With the occasional sledgehammer to the occasional ultra offensive wall," Valerie added.
"Val, what you did, standing up for me to Ross…"
"You don't have to say it, Kelly."
"Yes, I do," said Kelly. "The memory of Ross Webber has tormented me for a decade now, and I cannot tell you how much that meant to me for you to do that, despite everything."
Kelly's words somewhat lifted Valerie's spirits.
Somewhat.
She was still without her Brenda.
"So you and Brandon?" asked Val.
"Brandon needs a friend right now," said Kelly. "That's what I'm being for him. He's suffering. He's probably been suffering all along; he just made it his mission to mask his suffering so that he could force himself to continue appearing resolute."
"Right," Val dragged out, "a friend."
"If you're David's friend, then I'm Brandon's," said Kelly.
Valerie let it go.
She didn't clear out her liquor supply. She didn't sign up for AA.
But she did make an appointment to speak with a doctor about whether she should consider antidepressants.
She did discard her bottle of sleeping pills.
"Does this mean you've decided to forgive yourself?" asked David. He twisted a tie around the bag Valerie had brought out and set it in the can, then came up behind Valerie to set his chin on her shoulder.
"This means I'm Valerie Eugenia Malone, and after all the shit I've been through, all the shit that tried to break me down that didn't succeed, I'm not losing my willpower or my sister because of some teeny-dick lawyer called Clayton," said Val.
"There's my feisty lady," said David. "Been a lonely week without you, Val."
"I've been here."
"Physically, yeah, but your mind's been somewhere else and when it goes to that place, there's no way for me to follow."
"You want to follow?"
"I'd follow you to a whole other galaxy if that's where you wanted to go."
"Can you," Valerie crossed her arms over David's and drew out further strength from him, "can you just hold me for a bit?"
"It's my favorite thing to do." David pressed his chest closer to Valerie's back. "Well, one of my favorite things. The other involves a little less fabric and a lot more heat."
Valerie would have responded, had she not noticed the buzz from the phone that sat on the dining room table.
She hollered out to Brandon to let him know.
"It's Jim," Brandon told them.
"Tell him to piss off," said Dylan.
"He's asking to meet with us. The three of us."
"Kinda hard to do considering Jimbo's the reason Bren's not talking to any of us," said Dylan. "I only just got her to answer her fucking phone so I can check she hasn't collapsed somewhere."
"The three of us." Brandon pointed to himself, then to Valerie and Dylan as he placed Jim on speaker.
"Hey Jim," said Dylan, "piss off!"
"I deserve that," said Jim.
"You think?" asked Dylan. "This is the longest Bren and I have been apart since I came here. You know how long this fucking week has been without my girls around? How much it's dragged? How terrified I've been for Bren's health? How every time the phone's rang, I immediately assume it's the hospital calling about Bren? Why the fuck should I listen to anything your ass has to say?"
Because, said Jim, he was in over his head and needed their help.
Face-to-face with Jim, Dylan asked why they should help him after everything he had done.
"In the same way you will protect your family, I will protect mine," said Jim. "For twenty-two years I've carried this secret, and I can no longer carry it alone."
That piqued Brandon's interest, though it was Valerie who inquired about the secret.
Valerie was Jim's daughter, said Jim.
"Excuse me?" asked Val.
"Just a tiny bit of humor before we dig into the real story," said Jim.
"Damn," said Val, "I was thisclose to being a Walsh."
"You are a Walsh," said Brandon.
Twenty-nine years before, said Jim, he had gone out to Lewiston in Western New York to visit an old friend of his father's. He had been introduced to the individual's son, a man close in age to Jim.
A man called Victor.
"We hit it off right away," said Jim, "especially when we realized we'd both participated in the student strike earlier that spring. We were both against the war, we both had strong conservative fathers who had been disappointed in their hippie sons. To make a long story semi-short, Victor liked to explore and I always loved taking the chance to show off my baby, a brand-new '69 Kawasaki."
"Samurai or Avenger?" asked Dylan.
"H1 500," said Jim.
"No shit?" asked Dylan.
Valerie reminded Dylan that he was supposed to be incensed with Jim.
"I can despise the man with the passion of a thousand poets and still respect his taste in bikes," said Dylan.
Brandon gave Dylan a pointed look and told Jim to continue.
"We decided to take our bikes on the road for the day," said Jim, "up to Oshawa, in Ontario, just outside of Bowmanville."
"Where Mom and Abby were," said Brandon.
"I still to this day don't know what caused your mother to run from that festival, but something compelled me to offer this beautiful woman a ride from whatever she was running from. We discovered we both had family in St. Paul and well, you know what happened from there."
Cindy had recently broken up with her old boyfriend Glen Evans, who Brandon joked she had only dated to fill in for Glenn Cormick. Jim had transferred to Macalester College where Cindy was enrolled. They married three years later.
"And we were born two years after that," said Brandon.
"That was about the time we reconnected with Victor and Abby," said Jim, "who had a little girl of their own who instantly captivated our twins."
"That would be me," said Val, as if they weren't already aware.
Victor had been a contractor, said Jim, a contractor who quite enjoyed his job.
"But then inflation hit, and Victor had to find a second job if he were to keep his family afloat."
Abby, who had been estranged from her entire family with the exception of an elder brother, had told Victor of a position that had opened at the up-and-coming St. Paul branch of the company where her brother worked.
"Bering & Associates," said Brandon.
"My son, the soon-to-be award-winning journalist," said Jim.
Jim had been struggling at his own company, which had also been hit by inflation and had discussed laying off its newer staff. Shortly after the Malones moved into Minneapolis, Victor secured an interview for Jim at his new company.
"I did a few odd jobs for Bering, but it didn't take long to realize what I was doing wasn't exactly legal. I told the boss I wanted out."
"That's what you and Mr. Malone fought about," said Brandon.
"Victor said these guys had something on our wives, but wouldn't tell me what. That we had to do what they said, or our families would pay the price. It was about that time I switched companies, and when they offered me the job in Beverly Hills, I leapt at the chance for our family's escape. I had no idea that they'd track me down there around the time of Mel's and Jackie's first wedding, and tell me that Jack McKay was part of the group who had been blackmailing my wife."
"That's why you wouldn't let Bren near him and wanted me away from her," said Dylan.
"I figured if I threatened something as severe as statutory rape charges and freezing your assets, you'd steer clear of our family," said Jim. "They'd found out about Brenda's connection to you through the Mexican authorities. I was already plenty upset about your little Mexican escapade, so it seemed a no-brainer to do everything I possibly could to sever my family's ties with anything McKay."
"Except you couldn't," said Dylan. "You never will."
"Enter Paris," said Jim. "It worked doubletime, to keep you and Brenda separate and to keep her under the watchful eye of her aunt Sheila's old friend."
Sylvie DuBois, who ran an immersion program in a boarding house in Paris.
Yet even Paris couldn't keep Dylan and Brenda apart, which was why Jim had been almost relieved to learn of Dylan's cheating with Kelly.
"Was my father blackmailing Cindy?" asked Dylan.
"Honestly, Dylan, I couldn't tell you if he was or if he wasn't. But at the time, I was convinced, and there wasn't any way I would be allowing Jack around my family."
Jack had upset his business partner, Immo Rawlins, who had told Jim that Tom Rose was seeking leverage against the McKay family. Anyone involved with the McKays had a target painted on their backs.
"By this point, I was under the impression that your father had been blackmailing my wife and old friends, and I had been warned that my childrens' associations with you would get them killed. I began to despise the name of McKay," said Jim.
There had been a brief respite, following Jack's death.
"My daughter was no longer dating a McKay and you and my son were no longer as close as you had been. Our troubles were finally over; or so it seemed. They might've been, had Brenda remained in Minneapolis and away from you."
The threats had begun again. Rawlins had offered his protection and asked Jim to take on a new client, Lawrence Carson.
"Was Stuart involved?" asked Dylan.
He had not been, as far as Jim knew.
"Lawrence liked to keep his son out of that part of his business. I didn't know that by agreeing to take on Lawrence, I would be agreeing to take on other clients and jobs for Rawlins," said Jim.
Those clients had taken him to Hong Kong.
"The Carsons' construction company was looking to take on new contractors. I told Victor about the job. He discussed it with Abby and well…I don't have to tell you how that ended."
Jim thought they had been safe when Brenda had moved to London and Brandon had seemingly broken off all ties with Dylan.
"Except Valerie wouldn't heed my warning to stay away from you," Jim told Dylan. "Brandon taped those ties back together. And before I knew it, you had gone off to London to reunite with my daughter. So I turned to Rawlins to handle it. He sent in his daughter, who it turned out had recently been approved to work in London."
Dylan said he and Brenda hadn't met anyone with the surname Rawlins.
She had used her mother's name, said Jim. Pickering.
"Holly Pickering?" Dylan yelled. "Bren's neighbor? The girl who told Bren I left without a note, when I very much did leave a note? The girl I warned Bren had a thing for me?"
Holly had enlisted the help of her friend, a Freddy Stevenson.
"My fucking boss," said Dylan. "K2. Freddy offered me the fucking assignment for K2. You're responsible for K2?"
"I requested that Rawlins do whatever he thought would come between you and my daughter. I never would have imagined that it wasn't your acquaintance or the threats that would end up harming her, but a freak accident no one could have prevented."
Jim had been certain that Brenda's amnesia and Dylan's choice to flee to California had finally ended the Walsh's association with the McKays, once and for all.
"Which may be why I flew off the handle at finding out about Brenda's pregnancy and that you had moved in with her," said Jim. "Even with her amnesia, I still could not protect my daughter."
"What I want to know is, what does all of this have to do with how your attorney absolutely skewered Bren in the courtroom like she was a fucking marshmallow at a summer bonfire?" asked Dylan.
"That's what I have been attempting to find out," said Jim. "They were supposed to beat your name into the ground as per the instruction I was told Rawlins had given, not the reputations of my children. I can only assume Clayton Claiborne is connected to Cindy's blackmailers, that he targeted Brenda to get to Cindy, and that's why I need Brandon to investigate what they've been holding on his mother all of these years. Maybe then we can finally put an end to this."
"If I help Brandon, will you stop fighting against the life Bren and I want together?" asked Dylan. "And stop threatening to separate me from my girls?"
"If you help my wife, then I will offer to officiate your wedding," said Jim, "provided my children will no longer be threatened simply for their association with your family."
"Your children are my family," said Dylan.
The offer to officiate would go to Nat, he said, but Jim's comment did initiate a tentative truce between the two men after years of ongoing combat.
"So if we take down this Bering & Associates, we take down Mom's blackmailers and the last of Dylan's father's enemies?" asked Brandon.
"As far as I understand it," said Jim.
Dylan eyed his watch and left to join Brenda at their scan, after he had agreed to help.
"You're lucky Dylan would do anything for Bren," said Valerie.
"It would seem David Silver has the same mentality toward you," said Jim.
Valerie asked for further details.
David had called Jim to ask for a meeting.
He had then chewed Jim out about the havoc he had brought on David's family, Valerie chief amongst them.
"He was concerned about your state of mind," said Jim. "Should I be concerned, as well?"
"I'm not gonna go out like my father did, if that's what you're worried about," said Val. "Their lives would all be frightfully dull without me."
"What did you mean, when you said I couldn't have known your father that well?" asked Jim.
Val would not be heading down that route again.
"I don't think anyone really knew him," she said.
"Victor didn't cope well with stress, and every time I saw him, he was stressed about something or other," said Jim. "Is that what you meant?"
Val pretended it was.
"David must care an awful lot about you," said Jim. "I don't think I've ever heard that boy tear into anyone before, let alone the way he tore into me."
"Would you have told us any of this if David hadn't contacted you?"
"If it would save my marriage and my tattered relationships with my children? Undoubtedly."
"Parents don't need to tail their kids, you know."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're tailing us. Your team knew too much."
Jim said that he had been unaware of most of Claiborne's arguments.
"If everything you said today is true, and you aren't a piece of shit hell-bent on controlling your daughter, then it might make me wish again that I had been your daughter," said Val.
"You may not be mine by blood, but blood doesn't dictate the children you choose to parent," said Jim.
Valerie and Brandon returned to the house.
They found Dylan in a tizzy, with Donna and Clare looking on worriedly.
"What are you doing?" asked Val.
Using his shoulder to hold his phone up to his ear as he flipped through a phone book, Dylan barely glanced at her.
"Bren didn't show up to the scan," he said. "I'm calling around to see who's got a crane free for tomorrow."
"I thought you were kidding about that," said Brandon.
"After what your father told us, I need Bren back with me more than ever before," said Dylan. "It's the only way I'll know she's protected. And since she decided to play hooky today and skip out on our appointment, a crane it is."
As if on cue, Dylan's phone began to ring.
"McKay," he said on the first ring. Valerie thought the caller had hung up until Dylan said, "Bren?"
Dylan's shoulders relaxed. He let the phone book slip out of his hands, onto the carpet where it fell in a disorganized pile by the sofa. "You're talking to me."
Dylan disappeared to his bedroom, where Valerie figured he would remain the rest of the night.
Until he charged out and zoned in on Brandon.
"I lost her," said Dylan.
"What do you mean, you lost her?" asked Brandon.
"I mean I fucking lost her!" said Dylan. "She - I think she was starting to remember Baja."
"Are you serious?"
"She was remembering Baja, man, then she said something I couldn't decipher, and now her fucking phone keeps going to voicemail!"
Donna and Kai observed the discussion from where they had been visiting with Valerie in the living room as Andrea watched a news bulletin flash across the screen.
"That's Bren's bus driver," said Dylan, transfixed on the television.
"You sure?" asked Brandon.
"Just looks like an old white guy to me," said Steve.
"I know what her bus driver looks like," said Dylan. "I've chatted with him numerous times as Bren has gotten on and off the bus. Name's Jorma. Real nice guy. Celebrated his sixtieth anniversary recently. Got a couple kids, grandkids. Kai, what's it saying?"
"It would seem Jorma suffered an attack," said Kai. "The news reports his bus was stolen."
"Stolen?" asked Dylan. "What do you mean, stolen? The bus can't be fucking stolen! Bren's on it!"
"Bren's on the bus?" asked Brandon and Valerie, in unison.
"She said you could meet her at the stop," said Dylan.
"Should I go down there?" asked Val.
Dylan remained pinned to the television.
"B," he said, "out of the injured train victims, the ones who lived, were any as badly injured as Bren?"
"No," said Brandon. "She was hurt the worst. Why?"
"Because who stands to gain if something happens to Bren?" asked Dylan.
"Rawlins." Brandon's eyes dilated with fear. "Take the worst victim out of the equation and -"
"And the company that could bring you financial ruin gets a lighter sentence," said Dylan. "Lure Bren's father into a false sense of security that you're helping him so he remains oblivious to your true plan. Plant a seed of mistrust towards all of us, pile it on until you've unleashed a fucking cyclone, and you're more likely to catch Bren alone. More likely to - to catch her unawares. To fi - finish what the tra - what the train started. And if you take out Cindy Beevis-Walsh's daughter in the process, the woman you've been blackmailing all along; well, that's just a bonus." Dylan teetered dangerously close to hyperventilation. "Get your ass in the car, Walsh. We - we gotta go."
"Not without Malone, you don't," said Valerie.
"And Silver," said David, as Steve said "Where Walsh and McKays go, Sanders goes."
"Arnold," said Clare, raising herself from Steve's lap.
"And Martin," said Donna.
"Don't even think about using a Walsh to rescue another Walsh without a Taylor nearby," said Kelly.
"I swear, if one more person wastes time Bren doesn't have by making some grand gesture with their last name…" said Dylan, effectively cutting Andrea off from saying hers. "Anyone who wants to can come with us, but I can only fit five in the car and one of those spots is Bren's."
Technically, the car fit six.
The sixth spot was occupied by a carseat Dylan clearly had no intention of removing, temporarily or otherwise.
It was a beautiful carseat, Val thought; a gift from Brenda's aunt Paula that Dylan had inserted in the car whilst Brenda had been gone.
"Claiming," said Val.
David claimed the fourth spot.
No one questioned who would take the fifth.
Kai asked whether he could tell Luca.
"I'll take everyone who can help us locate that bus," Dylan's words were rapid and jumbled to the point of being barely comprehensible, as if he had suddenly been given the dialect of an elderly Kerryman in the midst of a storytime, "even if that means involving König."
Brandon convinced Dylan to let him drive; though where he was driving to was anyone's guess.
"We'll take the route that heads towards the studio," said Dylan. "Even if they took a detour, we're bound to locate her that way."
"We'll go the way that heads home," said Steve over the car phone. "Meet somewhere in the middle."
David slid in, directly beside Valerie.
"How'd it go with Jim?" he asked, keeping his tone low so that Brandon and Dylan could remain in concentration.
"Better than we expected," said Val. "He told me you exploded on him."
"I wouldn't put it exactly like that."
"Still," said Valerie. "Thank you."
She slowly kissed David's cheek. Their eyes drifted to each other's lips as Valerie pulled away.
"Did you find out more about the tail?" he asked.
She told him Jim had been oblivious, or so he claimed.
David's gaze roamed over Valerie. Tracing the daisy tattoo embedded on her upper back, he dropped his lips upon it before becoming distracted by an object on the floor.
"Val, where did you get that purse?"
"Silver, I think we have more pressing matters than where Val shops," said Brandon.
"Where did you get that purse?" David repeated, removing his lips from Valerie's skin.
It had been one of the many presents that had come for Brenda following her accident, said Valerie. The purse had not been to Brenda's taste. Brenda had told Val that she could have it.
David snatched the purse off of the floor and began dumping out its contents.
"David! What are you doing?" asked Val.
"Val, this is the purse you had the night at the hospital, isn't it?" asked David, tearing at the purse's lining.
"Brandon! He's destroying my purse!" said Val.
"I'll get you a new one," said David.
Brandon flicked a quick glance to the purse.
"Didn't you have that on you the day Dylan came into town?" he asked.
"And the day Bren told me all about her fight with Dylan, verbatim. Oh my God!" Valerie helped David rip at the lining.
David yanked out a tiny microscopic device from inside the lining, showed it around, put it back in the empty purse, and threw the purse out the window.
"Try tailing us now, you fuckers," he said.
"It's me." The screech that came out of Valerie rivaled a pterodactyl as she cowered into the seat. "I'm the tail."
Valerie told Brandon to let her out of the car.
"Val," said all three men.
"I'm the tail," she repeated. "I gave Claiborne all the information he needed to know."
"Right now, I couldn't care less about what Claiborne knows, about that hearing, or about a fucking bug in your purse there was no way you could've known about," said Dylan, keeping his eyes locked on his window. "Bren said she had to do something. Do you think -"
"She might've gone to Luca's?" asked Brandon.
"Take the next exit," said Dylan. "I'm gonna keep trying her phone."
David held Valerie, whispering reassurances in her ear.
The only thing keeping Valerie in that car was Brenda.
"Pick up, dammit!" Dylan yelled into the receiver. "Fucking pick up!"
"We're gonna find that bus, D," said Brandon.
Dylan wasn't scared they wouldn't find the bus, Valerie thought.
He was scared what they would find when they did find the bus.
"She'll be okay, Dyl," said Val.
"One week," said Dylan. "All we needed was one fucking week to up our chance of avoiding the NICU."
"They're both gonna be okay," said David.
"I'm never keeping anything from Brenda ever again," said Dylan.
"From now on, we blame only those responsible for getting Bren on a stolen bus," said Brandon.
He moved into the lane to take the next exit, as planned.
"Keep going," said Dylan.
"But you just said -"
"Keep going!" Dylan shouted.
Valerie followed Dylan's gaze to two bouquets that lay on the side of the highway.
"Bren likes those flowers," she said wistfully. "I forget what they're called."
"Asters," said Dylan, "and next to them? That's gladiolus." He reached over to punch at a button in the car.
The sunroof peeled back. Temperate wind whooshed in.
Dylan stuck his head out the sunroof.
Valerie followed.
"Do you see it?" she asked, her voice battling the wind to be heard.
"There!" Dylan jabbed his finger towards a hunk of orange in the distance almost completely obscured by flowering trees. "Brandon! Take a right!"
Valerie couldn't say who hopped out first. They all seemed to do so simultaneously.
Brandon sniffed at the mostly pleasant aroma in the air.
With the exception of a sulfuric tinge.
"Do you smell gasoline?" he asked.
Dylan slammed his hand against a window.
"Brenda!" he yelled, continuing to bang at the window. "Dammit, Brenda! Now's not the time to take a nap!"
Brenda stirred against the window.
Dylan? they saw her lips move as her eyes remained shut.
And then, to their horror, Brenda grimaced.
"Hang on!" Dylan told her. "Baby, hang on! I couldn't save Jack from his fucking car. I've lost you to too many fucking cities via too many fucking planes. I couldn't get you off that fucking train. I sure as hell am getting you out of this fucking bus. Both of you." He pressed his hand to the window, slid it down until it met the frame of the bus, then sprinted over to the rear window. "B, get out one of your tools and help me open this goddamn window! Silver, Val, you work on opening a goddamn door!"
They had only just started heeding Dylan's barked orders when more cars arrived.
Luca handed Steve a wrench. The latter went to help Dylan and Brandon, as the former worked on getting atop the bus to search for a roof hatch.
Kelly and Donna each worked on two separate windows. With Kai's assistance, Clare worked on repairing the hood.
Trying and failing to call for help, Andrea was designated as the person to stand on the side of the road to hail down any vehicles that came by.
If vehicles would come by.
Valerie didn't need to see Dylan to know what he was thinking.
She was certain they had the same thought, that they all had the same thought.
Immo Rawlins was a dead man.
Jim Walsh had been snowed.
And it would be years before any of them allowed Brenda to travel solo.
Assuming Dylan would ever allow Brenda to travel without him again, which Valerie very much doubted.
At least not without extensive protests.
-x
Sources: Google, Google Images, Google Maps, and the websites for Alcohol dot org, AutoZone, Baby Center, Bloom & Wild, Cornell College, Firestone, King & McGaw, IMDB, Mayo Clinic, Skoolie, The New York Times, Rail Forums UK, Washington University, What to Expect, Womans Day. Song: Celebrate Me Home, Kenny Loggins.
(Shout-out to KJ to express my continued gratitude and appreciation, as well as those of you I can message directly. KJ, I also adore the relationship between Brandon and Val! I love the platonic side of it more than the romantic side and their scenes in that storyline hurt quite a bit. Just when Bren thought she finally had some stability, Claiborne happened.)
Thanks a million! x