“Do I know you?” Beth asked as Maria walked into the motel room and took a long look around and saw two young teenagers sitting on their beds and looking up on the stranger to come into the rooms. It felt surreal for Maria to see two mini versions of Grace, and so much of Max in the faces and then look into their mother’s eyes and Liz so many years after they believed they had lost her and for Beth there was this underlining current like she should know this woman and that she seemed familiar.
“I am sorry for barging in here,” Maria smiled as she worked to try to keep her emotions low on expectations because she could see the confusion in their mother’s eyes. “I was looking for your daughter Alexandra who I assume is you,” she asked the two girls and correctly identified Alexandra.
“Hey, how can you tell us apart?” Carrie piped up.
“I am a mother myself and I am a pretty good investigator but in this case, I was told that your sister had longer straighter hair so unless she has gotten her hair done I figured I had to be close.”
“It was a good guess especially since Carrie’s hair is straighter today,” Alexandra said. “I am Alexandra....Oh my god… you…you are Maria Deluca Guerin?”
“You know me?” Maria asked surprised and Beth looked at the situation with curiosity.
“You are the author of
Shock and Awe. I love your books, I have all of them. Wow, I can’t believe you know my mother.”
“I am honored that you read and enjoy my books,” Maria smiled tickled pink that there was such a connection between her book and the younger generation and if it did turn out that the twins were Max’s daughters than it one more instance of karma giving one back to her after taking so much.
“I absolutely love them,” Alexandra giggled as Carrie rolled her eyes in amusement at how gushy her sister was getting. “I can’t imagine how you can think of everything the stories on based on.”
“You have no idea how easy it can come,” Maria smiled in response as she took a look at Beth. “I am sorry for barging in on you, but I heard of your daughter’s presence from my husband and stepbrother and I couldn’t say away.”
“Guerin,” Beth asked. “Are you related to Michael?”
“He is my husband, and Kyle Valenti who you also met back home is my stepbrother as his father, the town Sheriff, is married to my mother.”
“Wow, small circle.” Beth muttered.
“You have no idea,” Maria smiled as it hurt her to see the blank stare in Beth’s face as they looked at each other. “I can see from your face that you think you don’t know me, and I am not here to pressure you with any memories unless they come on their own, but I just want to let you know you were a very good friend of mine when we were kids and I am glad to see you after all these years.”
“You and Mom were friends?” Carrie asked.
“The very best,” Maria smiled as she looked at Beth. “And it hurt me deeply to lose her all those years ago,” she sighed softly. “I even know how you got your name,” she said to Alexandra.
“You do,” Alex piped up as she became charmed by her favorite author.
“You do,” Beth said quietly as she took in the image that this woman knew who she had been, and she was trying to be friendly and engaging and yet for Beth it still seemed so like a blank slate.
“Liz and I had a best friend and his name was Alexander Whitman and the three of us were extremely tight for years but unfortunately he passed away when we were juniors in high school. It hit the both of us pretty hard, and the devastation was very real and that is where you got your name as Alex could never be forgotten, no matter how we might have wanted to forget the circumstances of his death.”
“I saw him,” Alexandra said quietly.
“You did!” Maria asked. “But how, he’s dead.”
“Yeah, he said that,” Alexandra admitted to the shock of her mother. “I was talking to him or his spirit as he told he called himself when I ended up revealing myself to Max and little by little it all got spilled.”
“Oh my,” Maria muttered. “That is how he found out?”
“Yeah,” Alexandra smiled. “I am sorry if my presence is hurting your friends.”
“It’s just a surprise that is all,” Maria assured the teenager. “He had to know, and it was always going to have to come out and knowing our group it was going to be as spectacularly as possible given so many people knew before he or his daughter did.”
Beth sighed at the knowledge that nothing was coming back. The memories just weren’t there and the talking about the past wasn’t stirring anything and she could sense that there was great happiness in the woman who had come to visit them and, yet she couldn’t share that as she checked her watch, “I am sorry for interrupting, but we are needed at the station as I promised to meet with Jim Valenti.”
“Oh, I am keeping you,” Maria said as she kept up her chipper attitude. “Do you have a car?”
“No, I didn’t think of that when we arrived and had to take a taxi into town. I checked the map and I don’t think it’s much of a walk, or is it?” Beth asked.
“It’s a fair enough walk especially if you don’t know the town streets so why don’t I drive you.”
“You don’t have to,” Beth said. “We can figure it out.”
“No, let me take you,” Maria said as she jumped at the opportunity. “I need to see my stepfather also as there is some family business to deal with thanks to my kids and I might as well deal with it right now.”
“Your son was injured, wasn’t he?” Beth asked as he and the girls collected their stuff and walked out of the motel room.
“Yes, he was,” Maria nodded. “And my eldest daughter couldn’t help but get into the mischief.”
“How is he?” Beth asked. “How old is your daughter?”
“He is much better today,” Maria smiled. “Elizabeth is fifteen and approaching sixteen with every day to the chagrin of her father and I but luckily we have a six-year-old daughter to temper out any anxious moments we have with our other four kids. I have heard about your memory, so how has it been dealing with these circumstances.”
“You named your daughter Elizabeth?” Beth asked as she understood the symbolism of the name even if she didn’t feel the connection between the names.
“We mattered to each other and while you, I mean Liz, gave Grace my name as a middle name I couldn’t resist when Michael and I had our first child together and it was a girl, so we named our little creation
Elizabeth Amy after you and my mother and we were calling her Beth as a baby and then when you were lost to us we went back to Elizabeth as a tribute, and it’s stuck to this day.”
“Beth?” Beth asked as the twins exchanged a
‘Wow’ look at each other.
“Yes, she had just turned two years old when you died or left us,” Maria nodded.
“That is certainly an interesting coincidence,” Beth muttered as her brain dealt with the newest information and she felt like a ping of recognition to the name
Elizabeth Amy like it was registering in her and it was the first clue to maybe all this wasn’t a terrible hoax and she might actually be this person especially with the story of how the name Beth came about, and of course the name Evans.
“I don’t think it’s much of a coincidence,” Maria smiled with a cheery attitude because to her seeing Liz was a miracle coming true regardless of any downside that might come and whether the reunion could ever be complete because they all had a second chance. “It’s fate.”
“Maybe for you but time will tell and yet being here hasn’t been that illuminating for my memory,”
“It’s new for you so maybe in time and really you haven’t met Max yet.”
“Wouldn’t that that be worse for me if I can’t remember him?”
“I wouldn’t worry because while it’s going to be harsh for both of you to try to figure out the path forward, but he always has this way of helping and he could definitely help you see the past if you want the help,” Maria smiled.
“How!”
“You could say he has this special talent for it,” Maria said as they walked to the car and Carrie and Alexandra looked each other with a knowing glance and their interest was further peaked in their father.
******
“What is going on Max,” Jeff Parker asked his son-in law as they sat in the living room of their apartment and both he and his wife could tell their son in law didn’t have the most pleasant news for them and there was a lot of tension within Max as he took in the apartment and was overcome with memories of all those years before when they were so young and in love. “What is this about Lizzie?”
“I wish I didn’t have to tell you this?”
“What is it?” Nancy asked as she could also sense the tension in Max and she couldn’t imagine what would be so pressing that clearly was agonizing for their son in law.
“There is no easy way to tell you except to be blunt.”
“So be blunt,” Jeff said.
“Some discrepancies have come up that make us question certain facts about Liz’s crash,” Max said softly in trying the lower key option.
“What are you talking about?” Jeff asked as his mind went back to the night he got the news and the devastation on Max’s face as he came to tell his wife and himself along with Jim. “Lizzie died in a car crash and the cause went down as weather related. You tried to save her, but the body was too burnt from the nature of the crash.”
“I did everything to bring her back and we did believe it to be a car crash and deep down I still wish I could believe it today rather than sit here and tell you and Nancy that there is are questions being raised that make us question the circumstances of that day,” Max said softly.
“What kind of circumstances?” Jeff asked as he felt a tight squeeze as his wife’s hands took his hand.
“Questions are being raised about whether Liz actually really died on that day,” Max blurted out. “And whether she might still be alive today.”
“What the hell,” Jeff and Nancy said in unison. “That is impossible.”
“Jeff how I wish I didn’t have to tell you this or how I wish I could to deny it all I want but last weekend certain facts came to Jim’s attention when some cops were in town investigating connection to a case out there in their hometown of New Haven, Connecticut.
A woman, five days after Liz’s crash had her own crash in that she barely survived but she woke up two months later from a coma with no memory. The woman Jeff looks almost exactly like Liz would today I am told.”
“That is impossible,” Nancy said as she got up from the coach and paced the space between her husband and son in law. “Our daughter is dead.”
“I want to believe that too and initially believed that we were facing a terrible prank but unbeknownst to me until yesterday Michael and Kyle went to New Haven to investigate the matter and they met with the woman in question and they came back thinking it’s true and that there is no reason to think it’s all a lie. And before you say that they are only telling me this because they went in believing it because they wanted it to be true well they didn’t. Jim is the only one who was aware of the suspicions and so Michael and Kyle went in blind and came out thinking it is true after meeting the woman in question without any bias because I am told the resemblance is uncanny.”
“But you haven’t seen this woman?” Jeff asked.
“No,” Max shook his head as he knew he was only delaying the enviable, and eventually a first glance would take place, and feared of the event that would make that possible. “Only Michael and Kyle have”
“So, if she didn’t die then what happened to her?” Jeff asked as she stunning realization started to sink in of what Max was trying to tell them.
“We think she might have been grabbed, and the body replaced and then kidnapped and when she became a liability they tried to kill her away from Roswell but this time she survived yet without any memory, so she couldn’t reach out to us, or we couldn’t reach out to her.”
“We used dental records?” Nancy cried as she insisted “You know as well as we do Max because they couldn’t make an identification of the body, but they did when they used her dental records.”
“If it was pre-meditated than whoever did this planned it to detail and conned us with the dental records, so we would believe she was dead when in reality she survived,” Max said softly. “We are trying to come up with a reason for this to have happened, but I can’t deny that Michael, Isabel and I had enemies when we were young, and they might have wanted to strike back at me through my wife or kids.”
“But to actually want to go to this kind of lengths to get their revenge on you?” Jeff asked.
“I know how it sounds and I wish I could say that it is all a hoax but we’re still in the early stages of this and I wanted to come to you, so you could be on the lookout especially as it is part of what is causing Grace’s turmoil these days is this latest news about her mother and you needed to know for you own sakes as well as ours as a family.”
“Grace, how is she handling this news?” Jeff asked.
“You know Grace, she can handle a lot, but this is one thing too many right now, and I would rather it not be on her plate given all she had to deal with it but if it’s true than we ALL have to deal with it as a family.”
“Oh, god Max,” Nancy said as she tried to come to terms with what was being said. “This can’t be true, can it?” she asked quietly.
“I am sorry Nancy,” Max said solemnly. “As I said, I wished I could tell you differently.”
“How are you dealing with this?” she asked as she came in for hug with her son in law. “This can’t be easy for you?”
“It’s a lot and I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet, and maybe it hasn’t yet but it something unreal and given my luck, it’s something that isn’t that farfetched when it should be.”
“It isn’t,” Jeff said. “Farfetched… if it’s true....”
“I know,” Max nodded. “But there is more to the story.”
“What more can there be?” Jeff asked weary as he didn’t want to believe, but almost had to and he didn’t like that feeling. For nearly fourteen years they had been living with their daughter death and they felt they had finally come out the other side only for these questions to the pierce the shield around the pain of that loss.
“You will be surprised but there is another reason why we we’re not being punked and that reason is because of Grace’s recent trip with Jake when she ended up being hospitalized for her appendix,” Max lied.
“You told us she’s okay. She is, right?” Jeff asked stricken at the thought of their granddaughter being hurt.
“She’s perfectly healthy Jeff. I promise you of that, but it turns out that when her blood was put through the system it got red flagged.”
“Red flagged?” Nancy asked. “You mean in regard to your status?”
“No,” Max shook his head. “It turns out there are someone out there she matches and it’s pretty surprising.”
“Does she match this woman?” Jeff asked.
“Not at the moment but not because they didn’t match but I don’t think they thought to try but she matched someone else.”
“Whom?” Nancy asked. “How could she match as you guys don’t like to do much that registers your blood with the authorities?”
“We would rather not have our blood analyzed or on file but in this case, it couldn’t be helped,” Max thought back to his daughter’s hospitalization in New Haven when she was revealed to be pregnant and then ended up losing the baby and how that simple act of teenage defiance in skipping town with Jake had turned all their lives upside down and the ramifications were still unraveling as they sat here.
“Should we be worried?” Jeff asked.
“Only in the sense that it adds more to the story as it turns out the woman we believe to be Liz ended up giving birth to twin girls five months after her crash.”
“Are you telling us?”
“Yes,” Max nodded. “If Liz is alive than she gave birth to twin girls and those girls when they put their sample into the system to analyze their genetics, they ended up matching Grace...”
“Grace” Jeff and Nancy’s voice rose in unison.
“And you!” Max said softly to Jeff whose eyes opened wide as he took his wife’s hands once again and squeezed tight. “You also came up as a match for the twins.”
“Me?” Jeff asked....
“And that kind of match would only happen if you were their grandfather.”
“Max!”
******
“So, this is Roswell?” Carrie asked they walked parked nearby the Sheriff’s department as they piled out of Maria’s car. Beth took it all in and wondered in the daylight if anything was something she could remember and so far, she was batting zero while the girls thought of this as a wild adventure.
“It is,” Maria said as walked down the street and gave a tour as they walked and talked. “Most of this has been built up over the years, with new stores and restaurants going in but nothing has stayed with the times as much as the Crashdown Cafe,” she smiled. “You can see it across the street.”
“The Crashdown Cafe?” Beth asked.
“It’s a cool place. The Sheriff took me there yesterday after I came to town. It plays on the alien myths that this town holds,” Alexandra smiled as they looked across the street at the entrance to the cafe that had a huge spaceship as a sign.
“That it does,” Maria laughed as they stood and watched the action outside the restaurant. “But what he probably didn’t tell you Alexandra is that your grandparents own it.”
“They do!” Alexandra stopped in her tracks and glanced at Maria. “We have grandparents?”
“Yes, you do,” Maria smiled.
“Did you hear that Mom,” Alexandra asked as she watched her mother’s reaction to the news and he face was going pale.
“Yes,” Beth nodded as she struggled to deal with a flash that was coming to her of the same space ship that stood as the sign to the establishment.
“Yeah, your parents Beth,” Maria said as she bit her tongue on the urge to say Liz’s name but knew that wouldn’t be needed right now. “Jeff and Nancy Parker. They have owned that place since we were kids.”
“Wow,” Carrie and Alexandra whispered as they looked at the restaurant with Alexandra looking at it with a whole new appreciation from how she looked at it the day before as both girls always wanted grandparents and the idea they had them was amazing for them to learn.
“You also have grandparents on your father’s side who are also still with us; Phillip and Diane Evans.”
“Wow,” Carrie and Alexandra said as their eyes perked up at the thought of more family. “How big is our family?”
“It’s pretty big but not your traditional family but you do have an aunt who is your father’s sister and she and her husband have three kids of their own, and other honorary family.”
“Wow,” Carrie whispered again as she looked at her mother again and saw her mother’s face go even paler. “Mom, are you okay?”
“Liz...” Maria whispered as she saw the change in Beth’s face. “I am sorry, Beth!”
A space ship was blaring “Crashdown” and two teenagers were sitting nearby in a jeep with tears running down their face as they sat in a jeep and talking...
“Just tell me one thing, do you love her?” the girl said heartbroken as she stared at her true love.
“Not like I love you,” the boy said truthfully...
.... And they leaned in for a bittersweet kiss.
“Beth, come back to us,” Maria demanded as Carrie and Alexandra looked at their mother with anxious eyes.
“Mom!” the girls said in unison.
“Max,” Beth whispered with full recognition.
******
“How would they be able to know I match?” Jeff asked awestruck at the possibility that his little girl could still be alive, and that they might have other grandchildren, yet he still couldn’t get his head around the idea of the ability to match the girls with him.
“You had trouble when you were younger?” Max asked quietly. “Legal trouble?”
“Oh, my god,” Nancy said as she remembered the time Max was asking about which was something she hadn’t thought of in years since she told her daughter the story of her husband and why he was so fearful when Max and Liz had been going through some rebellious times against their families and the system in their senior year of high school. “Jeff!”
“Yes, I did,” Jeff said as flashes to his time as a teenager came flooding back. “It was a very dark time for me.”
“Liz told me the story,” Max said softly. “So, we don’t have to speak of it now, but Jim told me that your prints came up in the database once Roswell was put within the country database and when the twins were entered, you came up as a match.”
“I had forgotten that that with the advance of technology that Roswell did connect to the country wide database and while no charges came from my troubles, it did come close and it really started the path I took to clean up my life when I got together with Nancy and then we had Liz.”
“People often do forget, and because you didn’t have any warrants or charges that were outstanding there was never any need to worry about the database. I am told after the accident they tried to match this woman and then the babies, but no linkage came from the attempt and for some reason the DNA of the twins were run again recently, and a match came up.”
“So, for them to match me, then it has to mean that Lizzie is alive?” Jeff asked. “There is no other way.”
“Unless you have another child out there that we didn’t know of?” Max said quietly as memories of the baby that he almost had with Tess and how lucky for him that it turned out to be another man’s child and how the child was now being raised by his paternal family away from New Mexico and while he got lucky, the incident was always served to be a reminder of how close he came to having a second child and if he had proved to be the father than he and Liz might not have patched things up and they wouldn’t have had Grace, and the idea of his life with Grace, that was very upsetting.
“God,” Jeff said as the possibility sunk in. “Liz was our only one.”
“I am sorry for how this is dredging up memories,” Max said.
“If our daughter is alive we deserve to know,” Jeff muttered as the full weight of it all sunk in.
“Can you tell us more Max, of this woman? If she’s our daughter, is she okay?” Nancy asked suddenly open to the fact that their only child might actually be in this world.
“She’s a doctor,” Max said carefully.
******
“Are you okay?” Maria asked quietly to Beth as she started to come back to reality and realized where she was, and how much that flash bothered her as there was some real recognition to it.
“I think so,” Beth said as she came back and saw that Maria and her girls were staring at her with a look of grave concern. “I am fine,” she assured her daughters.
“You said a name?” Carrie said.
“Whose?” Beth asked.
“Max,” Alexandra said as she saw her mother back in reality and was no longer zoning out. “What happened?”
“I went somewhere?” Beth admitted, and she saw the sign of the Crashdown flashing not the same flashy as it was in the flash because it was now daylight and she knew the flash took place at night.
“Where?” Maria asked.
“I was younger. I was with someone and we were talking in a jeep and it was awkward between us, bittersweet, and it like he was leaving and was with someone else and our hearts were breaking as we spoke to each other...”
“Oh god,” Maria said. “You were thinking back to when Max almost left Roswell....” Maria said.
“And the planet” she thought to herself as she cut herself off from spilling that little tidbit. “You told me about it.”
“Did he leave?” Beth asked.
Maria shook her head with a smile “You saved him in the nick of time from making the worse mistake of his life.”
“We loved each other?” Beth asked.
“You both were soul mates” Maria smiled “Max was a goner for you from that moment in third grade to right now and there was no one but you.”
And with those words Beth was finally realizing she might actually be this Liz person.
******
Jim was now back in his office doing paperwork and he hated doing paperwork but it was the duty of the Sheriff even if he tried to delegate some of it to his deputies when the times were slow for actual cases, and times were slow at the moment but still dealing with the legalities of a case was seen as a diversion at the moment from wondering how it was going with Jeff and Nancy as they learned that their daughter was very much alive, and wouldn’t remember them if they were to meet. Sighing to himself he heard the door open and looked up and saw his son standing there... “Hey”
“Hey,” Kyle smiled. “Paperwork, wow you must be bored” he laughed because he knew how much his father hated that particular duty of his job.
“You are not back at school?” Jim asked.
“They don’t know I am back, and it feels like a shame to go back when the teams are being run for the week by someone else. It would be superseding their game plan for the game, so I’ll head back when I was scheduled to go back, Monday.”
“So, you’re taking it easy?” Jim asked.
“Yes, Isabel went into the store and I was on chauffeur duty for the kids for once.” Kyle smiled. “I thought I would come over and see how things were.”
“Beth is in town.”
“Is she? Kyle asked.
“They arrived last night,” Jim smiled. “I haven’t had the chance to see her yet or the kids, but they could be here at any time.”
“It’s got to be a lot for her to process,” Kyle said.
“How is she son?” Jim asked. “Is she the Liz we knew?”
“No,” Kyle shook her head. “The resemblance is there but the memory issues that came from her New Haven crash have allowed her to craft a very different life.”
“That is what I am afraid of for Max, Grace, Jeff and Nancy.”
“Well her memory could always come back,” Kyle said. “She has told me that she’s had some flashes in the past and if she’s here then the provoking of the past might bring out more and more awareness of the past and especially if Max helps it along. But even if her memory does come back then they will have to reconcile the fact she been gone fourteen years.”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “Just like when your mother came back into your life?”
“She was never dead, but she left me and while I was better off with you yet still having her back in my life brought about a major adjustment and while we came to terms and we loved each other we both knew that we could bring back what we missed.”
“Max is telling Jeff and Nancy as we speak,” Jim sighed.
“God, I hate the pain that this will cause for them or for Max and Grace,” Kyle muttered. “As you saw, Isabel took the news badly”
“The past is always tricky,” Jim said as the intercom buzzed from out front and he picked up his phone, “Yes, oh, okay send them in” he said he put down the phone and stared at his son. “Beth and her kids are here along with a surprise guest in Maria!”
“Wow!” Kyle said.
“Yes,” Jim nodded as moments later the door opened to his office and Maria walked in. “Maria!”
“Jim....oh, hey Kyle,” Maria smiled as she saw her stepbrother.
“Are they here?” Jim asked.
“Yes, they are,” Maria smiled as mere seconds later Beth walked in with her two daughters following her and Jim felt like he flew decades in the past as he recognized the woman walking in.
“Welcome to my town,” Jim said. “My name is Jim Valenti and while I do know Alexandra I might be a stranger for the other two of you,” he said to Carrie and Beth. “I am the Sheriff of Roswell and you’ve met my son, Kyle”
“And I guess I am Elizabeth Parker Evans, and well, I am alive!”