He didn't shop in hardware stores.

He didn't have a workshop.

Grandfathers shopped in hardware stores, didn't they? They had workshops. They built articles like screwdrivers.

The only screwdriver he could build was of the alcoholic kind.

He had failed shop.

HIs grandfather, an affluent member of society with the stacks of long-deceased Presidents to show for it, had instructed him of how to solder a screwdriver.

Brenda's grandfather had shopped in hardware stores. He had had a workshop.

He hadn't met Cindy's father before the man's unfortunate passing, but he had seen the workshop located beside the Beevis stables that Brenda's grandmother could not bear to sell off before her own passing.

Shit, he couldn't be a grandfather.

He was preparing to be a father for the third time and now he had to prepare to be a grandfather, on top of that?

Fuck, how was he going to tell Brenda that, contrary to what they had all believed, Steve hadn't stopped Adrianna's rape in time?

How could he tell his wife that their daughter was carrying her rapist's baby?

What could he do? Force Adrianna to get an abortion?

He didn't force his children into those kinds of decisions.

Usually. Could he make an exception?

His daughter couldn't have a baby at sixteen. She especially could not have a baby at sixteen fathered by the man who had turned her into an addict for him to addle her mind enough to rape her.

Dylan tried to recall the signs of a heart attack, to determine whether learning he would become a grandfather far too early in his life had caused him to have one.

The thought crossed his mind that Jim may have dealt with a similar racing mind when it had been he in the shoes that were now Dylan's.

Dylan, however, had not raped Brenda and, had they indeed been pregnant at sixteen, would not have left her high and dry once the baby came.

He did not trust Jeffie to do the same; which he would not get the opportunity to do in the first place, as Dylan would ensure Jeffie was tried, convicted, and locked away for life.

"Adrianna, I'm waiting," said Dylan. "I will ask again why the fuck I have walked in to see you holding a positive pregnancy test!"

"It's not mine," said Adrianna.

"It's in your hands," said Dylan.

"Yes, but it isn't mine," said Adrianna. "Grandma, show Dad the story."

"How about you tell me the story, instead," said Dylan. "And then I can determine whether you are lying to me or being honest."

"I'm not lying!" said Adrianna. "It isn't mine!"

"Then whose is it and why is it in our house?" asked Dylan.

His mobile interrupted.

He ignored it.

It persisted.

With a deep-set sigh that ended in a frustrated puff of breath, he answered.

"Val, I'm a little busy right now," he said. "Can I call you back?"

"Is it tonight that you're going in for your vasectomy?" asked Valerie.

"They postponed it," said Dylan. "If that's the only reason you called, I'll speak with you later –"

"I got my period," said Val.

"Uh…congratulations?" said Dylan.

"Dylan, I'm not supposed to get my fucking period!" said Val. "I'm not supposed to get a period and I'm damn sure not supposed to be cramping from it!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" asked Dylan. "Buy you some pads and dark chocolate? Dunno if I can find some E. Wedel around here. That's Brenda's preference."

"Can you please stop joking around and come get me? I need to go to the hospital and find out why the fuck I'm on a period I'm not supposed to be on and I'm cramping too much to try driving myself!"

"Why me?"

"Because Steve's in SD with a client, I can't get hold of Brandon, I even tried Kelly, Brenda's locked up, Andrea took Maddie and Hannah back upstate, I need Kai to watch Bryant, don't make me call David, I'm not getting astronomically charged for a fucking ambulance because in case you forgot, this isn't England, and I could traumatize a poor Uber driver!"

"Did you try Donna?"

"I can't call Donna, or it'll get back to David. Dylan, please! You know Bren would have agreed to it the second I asked her! She wouldn't be throwing around all these interrogations!"

"Okay, okay. Where are you?"

Ending the call, Dylan refocused on his daughter.

"We will talk about this when I get back," he said. "You are not to go out tonight."

"It isn't mine, Dad!" said Adrianna. "I swear!"

"I wish I could believe that," said Dylan.

His sweet girl marblelized before his eyes.

"Maybe it's Gina's," she said. "You were going to shag her the night of the benefit. How do I know you didn't end up shagging her after all and brought home the test she gave you?"

"We will talk about this when I get back," Dylan reiterated, with verbal force.

"Maybe I don't want to talk to you if you don't believe me that it isn't mine," said Adrianna.

"Maybe if you had been more honest with your mum and I about your situation with the little shite, I could," said Dylan.

"You're one to talk about honesty," said Adrianna. "If you had been honest with Mum about breaking your sobriety in the first place, none of this would have happened."

"I am the parent here."

"Yes, you are the parent here. Not me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Adrianna didn't answer him.

"Adrianna, what does that mean?" he asked again.

"It means you should go before we both say things we will regret," she said.

Dylan turned their fight over and over in his head as he drove in the direction of Valerie's office.

He wanted to believe Adrianna. He wanted to believe that his daughter was not pregnant with her rapist's baby.

He had also believed she would not turn to drugs.

That false belief had allowed her to be attacked.

Impregnated.

Attacked and impregnated.

"Val? Where are you?"

"In here!" she shouted.

She was curled up on her office floor.

"Why are you on the floor?" he asked.

"I tried to get to the bathroom, but as you can see, I didn't get far," she said. "Something isn't right, Dylan. I'm not supposed to be in this much pain, even with doing induced lactation on top of periomenopause."

"Alright." He helped her up. "We'll get you over to hospital and get you checked out."

"You don't look so great yourself," she said.

"Not having the best afternoon," he said.

"That makes two of us. Is it something to do with Bren?"

"You could say that."

He didn't want to admit his parental troubles, unless he was admitting them to Brenda.

"I'll owe you for this," said Valerie. "How should I pay you back? I could tell Bren you're seeing someone?"

"Why would you tell her that?"

"Bren says she wants you to move on, yet we all know how she'd react if you actually do. If I tell her you have, it might stir up some of her jealousy."

"No," Dylan emphasized. "No games. Bren and I haven't had games in our marriage and I'm not bringing them into play now. That's the old Dylan, the really old Dylan. I left that guy far behind for a reason."

"There must be some way I can pay you back," said Val. "I could tell Bren you're miserable without her?"

"You don't owe me. It's fine. Bren and I are going to work through this, without manipulative tactics."

He hadn't checked the time to see how long he had been waiting in the lobby, going over every moment of his daughter's life up to that point.

He didn't want Adrianna to feel like she had to earn his trust, but how was he going to be able to renew the damaged trust in her that she had taken advantage of to a dangerous degree?

Spotting Valerie in his peripheral vision, he stood.

"Well?" he asked. "What did they say?"

"It's normal," said Val, who did not appear as if anything was normal. "Can you take me home?"

"It's normal to get your period when you're periomenopausal?" asked Dylan.

"It wasn't my period," said Val. "And they said this is normal."

"The cramping?"

"Also normal. Body changes. You know."

"Body changes? From the periomenopause? Val, you were on the floor demanding I come get you. I'm not getting more out of you than that it was completely normal?"

"It was," said Val. "Normal."

He doubted that, but Valerie had chosen to stop speaking to him.

He dropped her off, contemplating whether to return home or keep going until he hit Baja.

He couldn't go to Baja without Brenda, even if he could abandon his children.

His children and Brenda would be disinclined to forgive him if he abandoned them.

Dylan returned home, to be greeted by his sister.

"Where's Ade?" he asked. "I need to speak with her."

"In her room," said Erica, "but first, we need to talk about the pregnancy test Adrianna said you found."

"Ade says it isn't hers," said Dylan. "And I desperately want to believe her, but…I keep thinking about Halloween…"

"It isn't hers," said Erica. "It's mine."

Dylan's jaw crashed to the carpet.

"I'm going to be an uncle again?" he asked.

"Let me rephrase," said Erica. "I'm holding it. For a friend."

"For a friend." Dylan eyed Erica's flat stomach.

"Stop that," she said.

"Why are you holding it for a friend?" he asked. "Which friend?"

"Eug."

"Eug?"

"Yes. Eug."

"Eug, as in, Eugenia? You have a friend who shares her name with Val's middle name?"

"Is that Val's middle name? Huh. Weird. I think you're missing the point here, Big Bro."

"What's that?"

"The point is the test is not Adrianna's. And –"

"And I owe my daughter an apology," said Dylan.

"You better do it soon," said Erica, "unless you want her to mention your fight during your call with Bren."

"Erica, I've spent these past several hours thinking my daughter was raped," said Dylan. "Thinking that Bren's and my first grandchild would be born of rape, or that I'd have to take my daughter's choice from her and persuade her to get an abortion. I didn't want Ade to be pregnant. I just don't know how I can trust her to tell me the truth about these things."

"If the rest of us learned to trust you despite your past," said Erica, "then you can learn to trust her. She's young. She'll make mistakes. Just like you did. Just like I did."

"Hopefully not just like I did," said Dylan.

Hesitating before Adrianna's door, he prepared to knock out their old secret knock.

Her door opened before he got it out.

"I heard you shuffling around outside my room," she said.

"I spoke with your aunt," said Dylan. "Were you aware it was her test?"

Adrianna said she was.

"Why didn't you tell me it was Erica's?" asked Dylan.

"I told you it wasn't mine," said Adrianna. "You didn't believe me. You weren't going to believe it was my aunt's."

"I know how much it sucks," said Dylan, "to not be believed. To not be trusted. I'm sorry I did that to you."

"It's not like I've not given you reason," said Adrianna.

"Just to be clear," said Dylan, "you haven't shagged the little shite?"

"I've not shagged anyone, Dad. Must I tell you when I have?"

"No, no, we don't need to go that far," said Dylan. "What you do, uh, sexually is your own business. I didn't want my little girl's first time to be something so traumatic for her. Sex, shagging, passionate lovemaking; it's an incredible experience, Ade; especially when you do it with someone you love and I don't ever want you to find out otherwise. Not that you can't also casually hook up with people; but if you're gonna do that, can you wait until you're a little older?"

"I'm sorry for what I said," said Adrianna, "about Gina. I know you've not shagged her, either time."

"The Gina comment stepped out of line," said Dylan, "but you weren't wrong about the other stuff. I can't tell you how many times I've told myself that if I'd just been honest with Bren about the drinking…"

"Don't listen to Grandpa. You didn't put Mum in jail."

"The fact of the matter is that Brenda would not have been confronted by Gina if I hadn't put myself in a position where Gina could do whatever the fuck she did. The fact of the matter is Bren and I would not be split if I hadn't put my pride in the way of confessing to my wife that I'd cocked up and thus lost her trust that took years to rebuild. You wouldn't have felt the need to protect your mother, and Brenda wouldn't have been arrested. Your grandfather is wrong about a lot of stuff, Ade, but he isn't wrong about this."

"He is," said Adrianna. "He is wrong."

"I'm glad you aren't pregnant," said Dylan.

"That makes two of us," said Adrianna.

"A little too soon to joke about there being two of you."

"Sorry."

Adrianna told him the time.

"Go get your sister," said Dylan. "I'll ring Mum."

He debated whether to tell Brenda about the misunderstanding.

She would conclude the same as he had.

The shock would send her into early labor, before he could complete his sentence.

Perhaps he didn't have to tell her.

"Gina's back to making threats," he said. "I'm meeting with possible candidates to serve as the girls' bodyguards until everything is over. Not taking any chances."

"Bodyguards," said Brenda. "Yes. That would be good."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"That thing you do when you're thinking hard about something and have no intention of telling me whatever it is."

"I'm just tired, Dylan. I'm carrying two babies at once. I sleep on the worst bed known to man. I worked for hours on the roads today. I've not seen my youngest daughter in months and my oldest daughter in weeks. Can't I get tired?"

"Sure, you can get tired," said Dylan. "But whatever is going on with you, Bren, it's more than normal third trimester fatigue and I don't appreciate you using our kids to brush me off."

"Do I press you like this?"

"Bren," he tried a different approach, "why did you ask Jimbo to bring me to Casa Walsh after we thought Jack had been murdered?"

"You know why," said Brenda. "I didn't want you to think you were alone in your grief."

"I don't want you to think you're alone in yours," said Dylan, "and the longer you shut out your brother and I like this, the longer you will be, baby."

"May I speak with the girls now?"

"Think about what I said, babes. I love you. I love you more than either of us can comprehend and I'm here when you're ready to talk."

He thought she may have hung up.

"Bren?" he asked.

"They love your voice," she said at a nearly indiscernible volume. "It comforts them."

"Yours does the same for us," he said. "It won't be long until you're home with us. Maybe we can talk then."

"Maybe," said Brenda. "You don't have to fret over me, Dylan."

"That's easier said than done," said Dylan. "And before you go telling yourself it's because of our pregnancy or because of your current residence, you know better than that, Mrs. McKay."

He gave his daughters the opportunity to have a private conversation with their mother.

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you?" he asked Erica. "If you'd been pregnant?"

"You'd be the first person I'd tell," said Erica.

"Ade says she didn't tell me it was yours because I wouldn't have believed her," said Dylan.

"That's part of it," said Erica. "She told me the test taker should know before anyone else."

"The test taker," said Dylan. "Your friend Eug."

"Yeah, my friend Eug."

"Do you think Ade will forgive me for this?" asked Dylan.

"You've been forgiven for a lot," said Erica. "This is minimal in comparison. I'm sure she will."

"She's too much like me. I don't forgive easily."

"She's also a lot like her mother, and Bren does."

"Not this year."

"Bren's been through a lot this year."

"Yeah, and I can't help thinking that none of what she's been through would've happened if I hadn't been alone with a bottle of alcohol."

"One glass. You said it was one glass."

"You don't get plastered like that off of one glass, Erica."

"Are you starting to wonder if you did sleep with Gina?"

"No," said Dylan. "I'm wondering how I was able to get that wasted from one drink that I didn't remember any of it until Gina showed up at our doorstep and torpedoed Bren's life."

"Maybe it wasn't just alcohol in that glass," said Erica.

"There is no drug on this earth that would get me to hallucinate my wife to the point that I would forget what she feels like," said Dylan. "All the years Bren and I were apart, I never forgot what she felt like in my arms; what she felt like inside me. I can't begin to tell you how the others felt, because Bren wiped it all away. Sorry," he tilted his face upward to tell Toni in the sky.

It hadn't been an exaggeration. He truly could not recall how any of them had felt, except for Brenda.

The only woman whose feel he hadn't forgotten.

"Drugs aren't the only things people can use to mess with someone's mind," said Erica.

"You think Gina messed with my mind?"

"I think LL's end goal was taking everything from Bren, for some reason or other, and you were the easy target."

"Thanks."

"Except you aren't an easy target."

"I have been, before."

"Before eighteen years of a solid, stable marriage where, if I'm correct, you were absolutely faithful to Bren?"

"I was. Am," Dylan quickly corrected.

"You said Gina dangled Bren's freedom in front of you to get you to agree to shag her?" asked Erica.

"She did, but that was after everything," said Dylan.

"Maybe she used a similar tactic to get you wasted," said Erica.

It was an interesting proposition, one Dylan would have to give great consideration.

"She got hold of my sperm somehow," he said. "I'm not giving up on this until I know how."

"I should go call my friend and tell her I have her result."

"Your friend Eug."

"Will you quit that?"

"Just saying. Didn't know you have a friend named Eug who randomly leaves pregnancy tests lying around my house for my daughter to stumble across."

"You don't know all of my friends."

"Erica, if you're the one that's knocked up, you can tell me."

"I'm not knocked up!"

"Alright," said Dylan, "but if you are, I'd help you out. You know. With the baby. Bren and I would. Emotionally. Financially. Chauffeur…ly. Whatever you'd need."

"I'm going to bed," said Erica.

She left Dylan alone with his whirling weighty thoughts, all circling back to one thing:

What does LL have against my wife?

Combined with the query of how he could protect his family from the invisible force that desired to harm them all.

xx

"I can't do this."

She had just sat down to drink her cup of tea when the cordless phone had rang.

No sooner had she answered than the caller had launched into her reason for the call.

"Val?"

"I can't do this, Bren."

"Can't do what?"

"This! How are you doing this? My bladder's a fucking punching bag for this kid and I'm not supposed to weigh this much for another few months, at least! How giant is this kid's head?!"

"It's a little late to renege on your deal with Steve, Val. These are things to think about before you're five months in."

"Save me from the lecture."

"It's not a lecture," said Brenda. "Val, this baby is coming whether you want it to or not, and that means you have to deal with some super uncomfortable stuff to make sure Steve's kid comes out nice and healthy."

She should know, as she had been told she would pop any day with her first.

Their only, she had told her husband, who had laughed and told Brenda that was unlikely with the amount of sex she got out of him.

He had prepared the overnight bag, sitting it beside the door until such time as it would be needed.

"Who's on the phone?" he asked, brushing a kiss over first her head and then her stomach.

"Val," she said. "She's regretting the surrogacy."

"I'm not regretting it," said Valerie. "I just think my so-called friends could've given me a little more warning about what pregnancy could entail."

"My detailed presentation, complete with graphics, wasn't enough warning?" asked Brenda.

"I don't recall you telling me how often I would have to take a piss."

"I believe Donna was the one who told you that, if memory serves," said Dylan.

"I thought she was overexaggerating," said Val.

"That's on you," said Brenda.

"Can you two be a little more supportive here?" said Val.

"We tried to tell you," said Dylan.

"What's this really about?" asked Brenda. "Are you getting attached?"

"What?" asked Val. "No, I'm not getting attached."

"You're growing a baby," said Brenda. "A tiny little being that's been inside you, day in and day out for five months. It would be understandable if you've become attached. I doubt Steve would be mad if you tell him you want some part in this baby's life."

"The deal was Steve would raise this baby and all I would do is carry it," said Val. "I'm not changing the deal."

"He might be expecting the tweak."

"There will be no tweaking. I'm only complaining about how damn uncomfortable I am."

Brenda felt uncomfortable, herself.

It was a new kind of discomfort than she had experienced in recent weeks.

It had been the reason for her to make her tea.

Dylan moved to sit his wife on his lap.

"Uh, I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said.

"Do you need me to help you to the bathroom again?" he asked, looking at the circle forming on her leggings.

"More like to hospital."

"Bren?"

"My water broke," she said with all the calm she could possess. "I'm in labor."

"Fuck!" Dylan jolted up. "Val –"

"Call Brandon," said Valerie. "I'm on it."

Brenda's doctor appeared in the room.

"He isn't my doctor," she said.

"He's delivering our baby," said Dylan.

"I don't want him to deliver our baby," said Brenda. "She doesn't need to be delivered. I'll keep her inside, where she's safe."

"She's coming," said Dylan, "and he's the only one who can deliver her."

Brenda fought a contraction.

If she fought enough of them, her baby wouldn't be delivered by him.

"You can deliver her," she told Dylan.

"I don't know your body," said Dylan. "He does. He's been inside it more recently than I have. You let him in. You won't let me in."

"I didn't let him in," said Brenda. "You do know my body. No one knows my body to the extent you do."

"I can't get to your body when you've locked up on me like this," said Dylan. "He's the only one you're letting in. He's the only one who can deliver her. He knows what you like better than I do."

"Your baby needs you to let me touch you," said the doctor.

"You aren't coming anywhere near me or my baby!" Brenda yelled.

"Why, Brenda," he said, "I just want a little taste. Come on. Give me a taste."

He waggled his fingers.

"Dylan!" Brenda shouted. "Dylan, help me!"

"If you don't let me in," said Dylan, "I can't help you. If you want help, Bren, let me in. Let your brother in. Let Val in. Let one of us in, or lose yourself in him forever."

Dylan vanished behind the wall of glass.

Brenda couldn't remember a time of such loneliness.

"You're – you're dead," she said, quaking.

"I'm very much alive in your mind, sweetheart," said the doctor, who had transformed into the prison guard. "As long as I remain in your mind, I can be in your dreams. In your memories. In your dreams, in your memories, I can get all the taste of you I want. I can haunt you. I can finish what I started and enjoy every damn second I'm inside you. And there's nothing you can do to get me out."

Brenda screamed, but there was no one around to hear.

She flew up out of bed, checking to see if her waters had indeed broken.

They had not but, having hit her thirty-first week, they could.

"Brenda," said her cellmate, whose name she had still not bothered to learn, "call for you."

"If it's Dylan," said Brenda, trying to shake herself out of her nightmare, "I already spoke to him. He's going to lose his privileges if he calls again so soon."

"That was last night," said her cellmate. "It's morning and she's insisting on talking to you."

She?

Thinking it might be one of her daughters, Brenda waddled her way to the phone.

She sat immediately, well aware that she had reached the point where she could barely stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

"I'm fucked."

Holding the phone away from her, Brenda gave her leg a pinch to check she wasn't in her dream.

Shite, that stung.

She brought the phone back to her ear.

"Val?" she asked.

"Bren," said Val, "I'm fucked. Well and truly fucked."

"I'm going to need a little more context than that," said Brenda.

"I can't have kids," said Val. "That's what the doctor said. That's what she fucking said! So I figured birth control was pointless now. I could have as much sex as I wanted with whomever and not get knocked up, right? Because I can't?"

"Val –"

"Bren, I have a fucking crook for a doctor."

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm getting at that I'm bloated. Daily. Which is what happens in periomenopause and during induced lacatation. So spotting? That would happen in those, too? That would be assumed, wouldn't it, if a woman diagnosed with periomenopause started spotting?"

"Spotting?" asked Brenda. "You're spotting?"

"I was spotting," said Val. "And cramping. How odd, I thought, that I would get my period after months and months and fucking months of not getting it, which is why I got tested and diagnosed in the first place. So I got checked out, checked out for spotting. For cramping. For getting my period I'm not supposed to have. Except it wasn't a period. I'm fucking pregnant, Brenda!"

Brenda was temporarily speechless.

"Did you hear me?" asked Val. "I'm pregnant!"

"I take it I should not congratulate you," said Brenda, carefully selecting her words. "Can I congratulate Steve?"

"Steve?" asked Val. "Why would you congratulate Steve?"

"I mean, you're getting married, so I kind of assumed it's…wait, hold on, it isn't Steve's baby? Valerie Eugenia! Is it David's?"

"I sleep around," said Val. "I'm notorious for it. I'm a slut. I'm a maneater and I don't care. I hook up with anyone who gives me the time of day. I like sex and guys like having sex, with me. I get drunk too, you know. Really drunk; like, blackout drunk. Women like me have to take paternity tests because we fucked too many guys to know. Who's to say whose kid this is?"

"Val, if you're carrying David's child, you have to tell him."

"Oh yeah, give him the opportunity to take both of my children from me. Great idea, Bren."

"You've decided to have the baby?"

"If this had happened two years ago, or even before my diagnosis, my choice would have been easy," said Val. "I'd be at the clinic already, first one in line. I can't get rid of my baby now, not when I've thought all this time that my body had decided I couldn't have this experience again."

"You hated your experience last time."

"This is my baby, Bren. Not a baby I'm carrying for someone else. Mine. I made a baby."

"With David."

"There is no proof that David and I slept together," said Val.

"No proof except that you rang me panicked that you had drunkenly hooked up with him," said Brenda, "and now you're pregnant trying to convince me of all the recent random hookups we both know you've not had, which indicates to me that you know exactly whose baby this is and that his name is David Silver."

"Everyone would assume the baby is Steve's, like you did."

"You can't tell Steve a baby that isn't his is his."

"Steve would know it's not. We haven't slept together."

"You can't ask Steve to pretend your baby is his if you know the baby is David's."

"How about this," said Valerie. "Assuming I know who the father of my baby is, I'll tell him after the holidays that he is the father of my baby, if you tell Brandon and/or Dylan what you're keeping from them both."

Brenda's chest seized.

She locked up.

"Why after the holidays?" she asked.

"Because your homecoming takes precedence," said Val. "So, what about it? Do we have a deal?"

"Did Dylan put you up to this?" Brenda accused.

"Put me up to what?"

"Lying to me that you're pregnant to get me all concerned over whether you'll tell David, just so you can get me to tell my husband and brother what doesn't concern either of them?"

"A) I'm not lying, B) if you want me to personally drop by Lynwood and give the guard the fucking test that says I'm six weeks to give to you, I will, C) if you aren't telling any of us, then it does concern us, Brenda."

"There's plenty you didn't tell Brandon or me and I didn't try to get it out of you. What is it with this group and thinking they have to know everything about everyone? Friends don't need to know everything!"

"I'm not only your friend," said Val. "I'm your sister. I've been your sister for a long time, the sister you let in about this pregnancy when you wouldn't let in the boys. You aren't yourself, and we're all worried about you."

"Explain to me how I can possibly be myself after being separated from my daughters for weeks on end, Valerie. Because I'm really quite curious to know how you expect me to return to myself when I've had to pray every day that my waters won't break and my twins will not take their first breaths in a jail cell."

"Okay, alright, I overstepped. Forgive me?"

"I'll forgive you if you tell David."

"Tell David what, that I got knocked up by some rando in a bar?"

"This isn't just about you, or David, or Steve," said Brenda. "You have to think about Bryant. About Kai. About Ruby."

"I'm always thinking about Bryant," said Val. "And Kai."

"Adrianna tells me Kai and Ruby haven't spoken since the dance," said Brenda.

"Why haven't they spoken?"

"You're involved with both of their dads, Val. You don't think that's a little awkward for them? That it wouldn't cause some infighting?"

"I'm not involved with David. Or with Steve. Not like that. With either."

"You can't let Kai get excited about being a brother if he isn't going to be," said Brenda. "Ruby deserves to know if she's going to be a big sister."

"Kai's a big brother either way. He may not be genetically mine, but he is mine. I carried that kid. I love that kid."

"I know," said Brenda, "and I've waited years to hear you admit it."

"What am I going to do, Bren? No matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt."

"You and Steve aren't in love," said Brenda. "Start there. And maybe, Val? Maybe this baby could be good, for you and for David."

"How would it be good for us?"

"Because you know from experience that David doesn't abandon his kids," said Brenda. "Do you remember what you told me years ago, long after Kai was born? You said your greatest fear about getting pregnant again was that you would have to do it alone, that you would have to be a single mother to your child. And we all know that your greatest fear about being with David is that you will wake up one day and he'll be gone. He isn't going to walk away from this, Val. He won't walk away from you."

"He's with Gina," said Val. "He's with her. He's digging up info for you by being with her, and I'm marrying Steve. This pregnancy doesn't change anything."

"This pregnancy changes everything," said Brenda. "You have eight months to figure out the life you want to bring your child into, Val. Start figuring it out now, rather than later."

Brenda's tiniest children announced their quiet agreement with her.

"David isn't just some rando," said Brenda. "He's one of my husband's best mates. He's a little brother to my brother and I. He's my sister-in-law's stepbrother. He was your fiancé's best friend; your fiancé, who is my brother's best friend and an uncle to my daughters. He's my older brother. He's my husband's longtime friend. Unless you plan on skipping town with Bryant, David and Steve are going to both be around. You can't hide this from them for forever and the longer you do, you will hurt them, Val. There's no getting around that."

"Skipping town," said Val. "There's an idea."

She was joking.

She had to be joking.

"I don't want to let anyone down," said Valerie.

"Babe," said Brenda, "if you aren't honest about the paternity of your child, you will let yourself and your child down. If you lie to David about this, if you don't let him know that he's going to be a father again, it will put stress on you that you and your baby don't need."

"This is what I do," said Val softly. "I lie. It's second nature."

"Lying is how you protect yourself," said Brenda. "But it doesn't have to be. You won't hurt David. I have faith in you that you won't hurt David."

"I've hurt him before. I hurt him with Ginger. I hurt him with the photographer. I hurt him when I turned down his proposal. I hurt him by getting engaged to Steve. I hurt him, Bren. I hurt David. I hurt him, so he can't hurt me. Except I fail. I fail, because he does hurt me. Loving him hurts me, when I know I have never meant as much to him as Donna does; that I can never mean as much to him as she does. He wouldn't let me move in with him. He wouldn't let me, but he let her. He married her."

"We aren't talking about the love you're convinced David still has for Donna," said Brenda. "That's its own thing entirely. This is separate from that. This is about your child, about David's child. You would be intentionally separating a father from his child. I know you, Val. I know your heart, and I know the heart you've surrendered to David won't allow you to do that, whatever you've convinced yourself he feels about Donna. Be the fantastic mother I know you can be. Put your child first. Tell your baby's father that this baby exists. Tell David that his baby is growing in you. Let him be part of your pregnancy, or you will regret it."

"Can you give me until January to think about this?"

"Can you hide your pregnancy until January?"

"I'm not going to get that big that quickly, Bren."

"I did. With Cal. This is your second baby, Val. You don't know how fast you'll gain and if you don't tell David, he is going to find out. Don't you think it would be better if he finds out from you?"

"Did I force you to tell Dylan about your pregnancy?"

"You didn't have to," said Brenda, "because I knew from the moment I decided to go through with it that I had to tell him. Just as you have to tell David."

"You knew how Dylan would react," said Val. "You knew he would be thrilled. I don't know how David will take it. He could accuse me of trying to invoke his sympathy. He could accuse me of lying about this baby to get him to back off the custody case. It'll be a lot easier if I say the father is a rando, if I raise my children myself."

"He won't do any of that," said Brenda.

"Gina might. Gina might do something. I hear her from my office, muttering away. She feels she's owed a baby by Dylan and since he's shut that down flat, she's now set her sights on David's swimmers. She wants a baby and I guarantee you she will stop at nothing until she gets one."

Brenda voiced what Valerie could not.

"You don't want to tell David because you're afraid of telling him too soon, aren't you?"

She understood from Valerie's lack of immediate response that Brenda had nailed it.

"I'm not supposed to get pregnant," said Val. "All kinds of things can go wrong if you get pregnant during periomenopause. It could be dangerous for me. It could be dangerous for the baby. I can't tell David because I – I might not – I might not be able to carry to term. This isn't Steve's. He has nothing to lose when I lose this baby. David; I will neither confirm nor deny that this is his baby, but…he would lose, Bren. He would lose everything. And he would hate me for it; not that that's any different than how he feels about me now. I want this baby, and that is exactly why I am not going to be able to keep it. Because I want my child too much. The universe doesn't give me what I want. It just doesn't."

"Honey, you can't let that keep you from telling David," said Brenda, "or I wouldn't have told Dylan. Let me leave you with this: If you don't give David the chance to raise his child, if you don't give your child the chance to know the great dad he or she will have, the older sister he or she has; well, I could say that I'll never forgive you for it, but bottom line, Val? You'll never forgive yourself."

Brenda couldn't get an agreement out of Valerie, but perhaps she had given her just a little perspective to nibble on.

She wondered if, prior to that moment, her mother had ever stepped foot in a jail.

"Mum," she said.

"We got the approval for her to come visit you," said Dylan. "Cin isn't able to talk much, so I'm going to communicate for her. If that's alright with you. I'm not here to force you to talk to me."

"I'm not shutting you out, Dylan," said Brenda. "There are things you've wanted to forget, things you desperately tried to forget. I didn't force you to talk about them."

"What things do you desperately want to forget?" he asked.

"Being in this place would be a start," said Brenda.

"You'll be out soon and then you can put this place out of your mind," said Dylan. "Once you're home, you won't have to think about it again."

"It doesn't work like that."

"I know it doesn't, but I can still hope that in your case, it will. I can still hope my wife is somewhere inside there, can't I?"

"Why are you acting like I need an intervention?"

"Why are you acting like me when I did?"

Brenda held a conversation with her mother, through the translation of her husband.

Cindy wrote out a question that resulted in Dylan leaving the room.

"What did you tell him?" asked Brenda.

I asked to be alone with you to discuss an important matter, said the paper Cindy showed to her daughter. Are you aware that Valerie is pregnant?

"She told me," said Brenda.

Who is the father? wrote Cindy.

"Does Dylan know?" asked Brenda.

Dylan's the father?

Brenda hurriedly squashed her mother's incorrect conclusion that had Cindy flabbergasted.

"Dylan and Valerie haven't slept together," said Brenda. "Not in a very long time, anyway. I'm not overly comfortable with keeping this secret and not telling my brother or husband about Val's pregnancy, but she has to tell the father before more people know about it. He has the right to know. Dylan and Brandon do not have the right to know before him."

Who is the father? Cindy wrote again.

"That is not for me to tell," said Brenda. "He has to hear it from Val. Are we the only two that know of this?"

Cindy revealed that Adrianna also knew.

"Adrianna?" asked Brenda. "How does Adrianna know?"

"How does Adrianna know what?" asked Dylan.

"I thought you were done with your visit," said Brenda.

"I came back in to let Cindy know that our time is getting closer to ending," said Dylan. "How does Adrianna know what?"

"About the pregnancy test," said Brenda, unable to control her speech.

"You told her about the pregnancy test?" Dylan asked Cindy.

"You know about the pregnancy test?" asked Brenda.

"The one Erica's holding for a friend?" said Dylan. "Yeah, I'm aware."

"Erica's holding a test for a friend?"

"That's what she says, anyway. Hella suspicious, if you ask me."

"Which friend?"

"Eug."

"Eug. Ah, didn't know she knew a Eug."

"Apparently, she does."

"I knew a Eug," said Brenda. "Eugenie. At RADA. You met her, I think. At Shane's party. Think it was about ninety…seven?"

"You also know a Eugenia," said Dylan. "Valerie Eugenia. Weird, isn't it?"

"Bit of a strange coincidence," said Brenda.

Cindy departed from the room.

"Looks like another visit is done," said Brenda, hinting at Dylan to do the same.

"We are going to have to learn how to deal with whatever has created this blockade between us, Bren," he said. "This glass is not going to remain as a barrier in our conversations. We are not going to be told when we can and cannot speak to each other, and when you are home, my living arrangements are not going to change. We will be too close to the birth of our twins for me to not continue living with you and the girls. I will continue doing so after the birth, as I will not be missing out on a moment of the twins' lives. I will not resume living separately from my children and no amount of pushing away by you can get me to change my mind on that. We will absolutely not be dragging this argument into court. Baby, you know our kids are my everything. And I know you still know that you are my everything. Deep, deep inside you, underneath those layers you've crafted to protect yourself from me, you might even still believe it."

"This isn't about protecting myself from you."

"What, then? What are you protecting yourself from?"

"I appreciate you taking care of my mum."

"That isn't an answer."

"Greatly appreciate it, Dylan. Can you also hire a bodyguard for Val?"

"Sure, why?"

"She's concerned about Gina coming near Bryant."

"She won't."

"Can you hire her one, just in case?"

Dylan said he would.

"Are you scared to love me still, Bren? Is that what this is about? You're afraid of letting me back in just so I can massively let you down again? Because that's what I do, right? Let you down? Let the girls down?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't, but you're thinking it."

"You don't know what I'm thinking."

"No, you're right; I don't know what you're thinking because the wife I know inside and out, the wife whose taste is imprinted on my lips, would tell me what's bothering her, instead of playing games to make me figure it out myself. My wife doesn't play games. It's something I love about her: how straight to the point she is, whether you want her to be or not. So get straight to the point, Bren, and let me know how I can fix this. Let me know how I can renew your trust in me, so that maybe you will trust me enough to tell me what you're thinking."

"I think it's time for you to go."

"You don't get to shut down this conversation like that."

"Literally," said Brenda. "It's literally time for you to go. Or did you forget where we are?"

"Like I could forget where we are," said Dylan. "It's the place you're sleeping in when you should be sleeping with me."

His words tolled in her head, the way a church bell tolls out the hour.

She couldn't sleep with him.

She couldn't share a bed with him.

How could she share a bed with him, when the figment of the guard that constantly dwelled beside her would crawl into their bed with them?

She would scream. Dylan would awaken to her screams. He would inquire why she had screamed. He would question the content of her nightmares.

She would not be able to tell him. He would become upset that she wouldn't tell him.

What did she have to do to get Dylan to agree that divorce was the best route for their marriage?

To get him to accept that their marriage as they had known it could not be restored?

That she could not be restored?

"Leave me alone," Brenda told the air.

"If you wanted me to leave you alone," responded the figment, "you should not have let your friend kill me."

"She was protecting me," said Brenda. "Me and my children. From you."

"Yet now, I am always in your head," said the figment. "You can't shake me. Wouldn't it have been better if I had lived? You would be dead. I would have disposed of you after I had finished with you. You wouldn't be forced to remember our time together. You wouldn't have to live with me haunting you. You wouldn't have to live with me taunting you when you make love to your husband, when you hold your daughters, or when your waters break to announce the imminent arrival of your twins."

The shadow was the guard's. The vocabulary was Brenda's own.

"I don't believe in ghosts," she said.

"You were a child who believed in an attic full of ghosts. Now you are an adult who walks amongst them, who talks to them and listens as they talk back."

"Dylan will protect me," said Brenda. "He will shield me from the memory of you."

"Dylan cannot shield you. He cannot protect you when you will not let him."

"I will. I will let him. I just – I just need to figure out how. He can't force me to tell him before I'm ready. He – he has to give me time to – to figure out how."

"You have allowed yourself to lock out your husband. You have allowed yourself to become lost from him. You will become hollow. He will tire of trying. You have stated it is your express wish for him to leave you and someday, Dylan will do exactly as you have asked. Your divorce will be finalized. He will find another. He will marry her. Custody of your children will be awarded to them."

"Dylan would never – he would never take my children from me," Brenda whispered to herself.

"He may not have a choice, when the court becomes aware of the grip you have released on your sanity. They will award full custody to him on that basis alone."

"I have not released my grip on my sanity."

"You are talking to a figment of a dead man. You believe your sanity is intact?"

Brenda opened her eyes.

The figment was gone.

It was just her, alone in her cell.

"I'm losing my sanity," she told herself. "Dylan can't help me. Brandon can't help me. Val can't help me. No one can help me when my own mind is against me."

Brenda mulled over whether it would be better for her girls to have their mother remain separated from them, rather than to live with a woman who would spiral before their eyes.

Until her mother could no longer recognize her.

Until her friends could no longer recognize her.

Until her brother could no longer recognize her.

Until her children could no longer recognize her.

Until her husband could no longer recognize her.

As she had parted with the ability to recognize herself.

-x

Oh boy, what is Steve going to do?

I am obviously not slutshaming Val, but we do see in s8 that she is the type of woman who will slutshame herself without qualm (when she says that she's a slut and Joan of Arc in her rape case.)

Source: Google.

(Shout-out to KJ to express my continued gratitude and appreciation, as well as those of you whose review I could respond to directly. Thank you, KJ! I imagine the kids as having the best traits - and some of the worst traits - of their parents, but also growing up in an environment where they're used to stepping in as the parent at times to deal with their parents' messy lives. What does Gina have planned? You'll just have to wait and see!)

Thanks a million!