“Breakfast is coming up,” Beth called through the house. Allowing her girls to know that they better get down to the kitchen for their favorite Sunday breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes. It had been a quiet evening with her daughters as they just spent the evening together and now she had a day off from work and she had no emergencies calling her to the hospital. She was planning to take the advantage of the day. Despite the chores that always called her name. A load of laundry was already in washing machine. Pancakes were on the way and she could hear the stumping of feet as well as doors slamming as one of her twins came out of the bathroom upstairs while the other one went in a minute later.
Calling upstairs once again, “Five minutes”
“Yes Mom,” Alexandra called from her bedroom as she grabbed her red sweatshirt, red being her favorite color while her sister Carrie had rushed into the bathroom as soon as she vacated it. She banged on the bathroom door as she walked past, “five minutes,” she warned her sister. “Otherwise there won’t be any pancakes left to come down to,” she said as she walked to the stairway.
Moments later she walked into the kitchen as her mother was serving the first of the pancakes. “Thank you, Mom,” she smiled as she sat down to the orange juice that was their customary breakfast beverage as her mother place a plate in front of her. “Carrie will be down in a minute.”
“I heard her,” Beth said. “What’s the plan for today?” Beth asked
“Being it is Sunday. Homework,” Alexandra said as she sliced into her pancake.
“Research for school” she said as Carrie zoomed into the kitchen and sat down where her own set of pancakes awaited to be eaten. “Luckily we don’t have school tomorrow. So, we don’t have to stress today but still it needs to start to get done.”
“You don’t have school tomorrow?” Beth asked. “Did I know this?” she asked as she sat down with her own plate of pancakes and looked at the girls who glanced at each other. “Did I?”
“Yes Mom,” Carrie spoke up. “It’s a Teacher’s Conference Day,” she said. “It’s been on the calendar since January.”
“Oh,” Beth said. “I don’t have anyone coming in tomorrow and I have my shift at the hospital.”
“We’ll be fine Mom,” Alexandra assured their mother. “Maybe we can stop by the hospital for lunch or something. We have before.”
“Yeah maybe,” Beth said a little concerned at the thought of her twins at only thirteen years of age being so independent. It shouldn’t be this way. But it’s one of the side effects of having a single mother who worked so much in a demanding career. Occasionally, looking at her kids, she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of kid and teenager she had been as she still had no memories from prior to the day she woke up in the hospital; thirteen years before.
“Mom it’s nothing,” Alexandra said as she ate her pancakes. “We will be fine, it’s not like we haven’t been in this situation before, you know.”
“I’m your mother; I am always supposed to worry about you guys,” Beth frowned but settled into a smile.
*****
“Dad anything?” Elizabeth Guerin said as she came down the stairs to the kitchen at home in Roswell. “I didn’t hear the phone ring. Did Mom call? Is Grace okay?” she asked as she worried for her best friend. It had been a hard night of tossing and turning as she fretted over her friend. Sue was some help as she was also holding vigil for information once Elizabeth had called her to tell her what she had learned. So, both prayed for Grace and hoped she would be home soon.
“Nothing since last night,” Michael said as he placed the plate of Tabasco fused pancakes and whipped cream with strawberries on top in front of his eldest daughter while Belle came into the kitchen. Liam and Colin had already had their breakfast and were now watching Sunday morning cartoons. “Good morning sweetheart.”
“Mornin’ Daddy,” Belle said as she sat down next to her elder sister. “Did I hear something about Mommy?”
“Mommy called us last night and she and Uncle Max are doing fine,” Michael said to both of his daughters. “They found Jake and hopefully they will be home soon.”
“Today?” Belle asked.
“Sorry it won’t be today but there is a good chance that it might be tomorrow. No promises though,” Michael said as he glanced at Elizabeth with a glance that told her to ask no more questions. She made her promise to ask her father after breakfast. She nodded and dug into her breakfast
.
“What do you want to do today?” Michael asked Belle.
“Can Lena come over this afternoon?” Belle asked her father as there was a knock on the back door. While her little sister talked with their father about afternoon plans, Elizabeth got up and went and opened the door and smiled when she saw who it was.
“Aunt Isabel and Uncle Kyle, cool?” Elizabeth smiled. “Hello!”
“Elizabeth,” Isabel said as she noticed Michael and Belle at the kitchen table. “We just dropped the kids off at their individual swimming classes and stopped by,” she said as she hugged her name sake Belle.
“Hi Uncle Kyle,” Belle said as she hugged Kyle.
“Eating breakfast?” Kyle asked as they watched the young girl go back to the kitchen table and finish her breakfast. He and Isabel noticed that there was tension on Elizabeth’s face which told them that she probably knew more than Belle did about their mother’s adventures with Max and Jake.
“Pancakes, strawberries and whipped cream” Belle smiled.
“Wow, sounds delicious.” Kyle smiled as they watched as Belle finished her breakfast and get the permission to join her older brothers watching cartoons. Permission which Michael granted and waited as they all watched as Belle dance out of the kitchen, “So what is going on with Maria and Max?”
“Yeah?” Isabel asked. “My brother was oddly silent last night. He wouldn’t even communicate with me through my dreams.”
“Grace is in the hospital,” Michael started as Elizabeth sat silently in her seat while squirming under the glare from her father. He knew his daughter still felt tremendous guilt over staying silent. “Maria didn’t know much the last time she called. She could only tell me that Grace’s condition had improved, and she was being held over for more testing.”
“More testing. That could be bad,” Isabel asked as all kinds of alien medical worries filled her mind.
“It really could mean anything,” Michael said. “It’s not hard not to go there Isabel, but she really didn’t want to say too much over the phone. So, I can’t be sure what is going on, especially with this being a new day after all.”
“What aren’t you saying,” Isabel said.
“Nothing.” Michael lied and looked at his daughter who saw the glance.
“I am going upstairs to call Sue and Barbie,” Elizabeth said as she could tell that her father didn’t want to talk too much about her brother and Grace’s New Haven predicament in front of her and she wasn’t about to fight it, for the moment anyway. “Can you tell me if Mom calls,” she mumbled as she quickly left the kitchen.
Which left the adults alone to talk, “Okay Michael,” Isabel said as they heard a bedroom door slam shut a few moments later. “What aren’t you saying?”
“What’s wrong with Grace?” Kyle asked.
“It’s serious,” Michael sighed as it was all he said because he sensed the walls had ears.
*****
“Daddy I am sorry,” Grace cried the moment her father came into her hospital room in New Haven.
Daddy, I am sorry also had been the first words out of Grace’s mouth the night before when both he and Dr. Davis had gone into talk with Grace immediately after the doctor had dropped the bombshell on the shocked father.
The words,
your daughter is pregnant is not the words any father of a not yet sixteen-year-old had wanted to hear. Especially one with such a bright future ahead of her at any Ivy League university she desired and a brilliant career in the waiting. Recovering from the shock, they had walked into Grace’s hospital room once she had been moved to her own room and he watched as the doctor broke the news to the nervous teenager.
Grace immediately broke down crying and Max took her into his arms as he tried to comfort his daughter’s tears. Before any decisions could be made, the doctor had told them the rest of the story so that his daughter could be informed.
His daughter has lost her baby. A still birth due to the fact she had been a several months along. Surgery would be scheduled for the next morning; Sunday. When the doctor left father and daughter, Grace broke down once again. Max was too confused to ask any questions. And he comforted his daughter until she fell asleep and then Max just sat and stared and slept by her bed.
Now it was after the surgery had been conducted and Grace was awake. Maria had taken Jake to the motel room he had rented for him and Grace. They had spent the morning at the motel and would be coming within the hour. Max had stayed at the hospital and watched over his daughter.
Max had gotten the green light to go into his daughter’s hospital room a few moments before he walked in. Walking in, he saw his little girl sitting up in bed. “Hey,” he had said.
“Daddy I am sorry,” Grace cried as he went to sit next to her bedside.
“It’s alright. How do you feel?” Max asked. Making sure to look over his daughter for any sign of pain and they both knew he would help with his own powers the next time they were alone and didn’t have the risk of a nurse walking in and checking on her patient.
“I am alright. Tired. Feeling a little pain,” Grace said as she became quite for a moment before speaking again. “Did the doctors say anything?” she asked.
“Do you really want to know?” Max asked softly as he finally spoke of the subject they hadn’t really discussed.
“Tell me,” Grace said.
“It was a boy,” Max said. “I have arranged for burial. They said you were just over five months along,” he said quietly.
“That is impossible,” Grace said. “The encounter happened no more than three months ago,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” Max asked even though he didn’t really want to discuss the subject but knew he needed to know more about it and to be there for his daughter during this emotional time.
“Yes Dad,” Grace said. “It was only one time.”
“Okay,” Max said. “If you say so,” he said as he clasped her hand. “Then it’s probably a case of your genes. Your mother was further along than she showed when she was carrying you. One of the byproducts of being who we are I guess. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Grace admitted. “But thank you for being here with me. I know I disappointed you with all this. And to find out what you did, I can’t believe. I honestly didn’t know.”
“I believe you sweetheart,” Max said as he was ready to give his daughter the benefit of the doubt. “Do you want to tell me who it was?”
“Dad,” Grace began. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to push you honey. But it might help to tell me. I can help you. But if you don’t want to talk about it right now,” Max said. “I won’t push. But tell me. Was it Jake?” he asked.
He saw the hesitant look on his daughter’s face. He wasn’t blind. He knew what a guy being interested in female looked like. Hell, he had that look on his face from third grade on with Liz on his mind and he could sense it when he looked at Jake and his daughter. They tried to cover and say they were only friends and with Jake being two years older than Grace; it was easy to ignore but not completely. “Grace,” he asked. “Was it Jake? I know he had a girlfriend and they broke up.”
“No Dad,” Grace said with a look of genuine truth to her. “It wasn’t Jake. I promise you, Aunt Maria and Uncle Michael. We’re only friends. Good friends and nothing more.”
“
Grace Maria Evans,” Max muttered.
“Okay Dad, it’s sort of a lie. But honestly Jake wasn’t the one. He has been the one and only guy in my life my age that has been solid. No sordid intentions. Okay, so we may have skirted the lines a little. Flirted here and there. And this trip was as over the edge as one can get but I promise you Dad that Jake has always been a gentleman with me. He understands that he’s older and when it comes down to it. He’s not stupid. He knows that you and especially his father would kill him if anything went down right now.”
Max couldn’t help but smirk. Jake despite his eerily Michael manner was a good kid and wouldn’t try anything sordid otherwise he or Michael would be having words. And was one of the reasons he hadn’t marched up and throttled Jake the night before when he got the news from the doctor. “I believe you,” he said.
“It’s the truth.” Grace said. “I can promise you that it wasn’t Jake. Not by a long shot. And while I don’t want to talk about the one I can say this you probably would wish it was Jake.”
“What does that mean?” Max asked.
“Just that the
one is a jerk and no one I would want to be having a kid with. So, if I had known, I have no idea what I would have done.” Grace muttered, scaring Max. “I am really tired. Can we discuss this later?”
“Sure,” Max said. “You have to stay in the hospital one more night. But we can go home tomorrow although you are off school all week.”
“Really?” Grace asked as she thought of all the classes and exams she would miss. “What about my party?”
Max smiled.
Aw little girl. “We can discuss it,” he said. “I’ll come back in a little while. I am going to go get something to eat with Maria and Jake. You rest up.” he said as he walked to the door.
“Oh Daddy,” Grace said quietly.
“Yes,” Max asked.
“Does Jake know?” Grace asked quietly as she moved on down the bed to lie down against the pillow.
“I don’t think so. But I can’t promise anything,” Max said. “I don’t know what his mother has told him.”
“If he doesn’t, please don’t tell him. Please.” she asked.
“Why not?” Max asked as he closed the door once again.
“Because he knows who it is, and he would kill him. I swear if Jake is to know, I must be the one to tell him and to be able to control what he does with the information. I won’t have him sitting in a jail cell due to my stupid mistake,” Grace said as before she drifted off to sleep while her father just stood staring at his daughter. As he was trying to keep himself in check from immediately going to the boy and getting the identity of the kid from Jacob Guerin and doing something incredibly rash to the kid in question.
If Grace feared Jake’s reaction that meant the guy was bad news and Max wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
*****
“Are you serious?” Aunt Isabel was saying in the kitchen as Elizabeth quietly observed the discussion underway in the kitchen. One of the good things about being a hybrid second generation is that she could fool her parents and they still fell for it. And making it seem like she went up to her room in a huff and used her powers to make sure the door gave the requisite sound necessary; she could stay undetected and observe the conversation and what she had overheard was a doozy she thought.
Grace was pregnant she thought to herself.
While she heard, “Is Jake the father?” Isabel was asking Michael. While Michael said, he didn’t know. Elizabeth knew instantly the answer. Unlike the parents, she knew who would have been the father if Grace was truly pregnant. And it wasn’t her older brother, Jake. It was someone a lot more disgusting. And a lot more trouble.
Sneaking away from the conversation; she tip-toed upstairs to her bedroom and got on the phone to her best friend Sue. “We have a problem,” she said quickly. “When can we meet?” she said as she arranged for to meet her friend at the Crashdown.
I am going to make Tommy Ellis pay she told herself as she hung up the phone.
As only an alien hybrid can get away with she told herself.
*****
“I can’t believe this,” Isabel was saying back in the kitchen as she thought of her niece in a hospital bed in New Haven; across the country. “She is so young to be going through this,” she said.
“I know,” Michael grunted. He hated not trusting his son and thinking the worse about whether his eighteen-year-old had been the father of Grace’s baby. Sure, down deep he doubted it. But then on the other hand, his son did run away for the weekend so the thoughts that were going through his mind weren’t pretty.
“It can’t be Jake,” Kyle said. “Let us all be reasonable here. I know it would take a blind man to ignore the looks between Jake and Grace. But she’s not even 16 yet. Jake wouldn’t be stupid to make such a mistake.”
“It only takes one time,” Isabel reasoned. “We all know what Max went through in high school.” she said as she though back to the time of the biggest turmoil in her brother’s life. A mistake with Tess Harding one night had brought a false claim of paternity against her brother just as he was angling to reconcile with Liz. In the end, they had discovered that Tess had lied about the events in question. It had all been a lie. It was a mind warp to trap her brother into a loveless union. While there really was a baby, it had turned out she had gotten pregnant one night by a fellow classmate and she’d tried to pass it off as Max’s son and had almost succeeded. In the end, Tess was killed in a plan of revenge gone badly and the baby had been turned over to his biological father’s family to be raised.
“Even so,” Kyle said. “Jake is too smart not to take the risk until Grace is older.”
“I hope so,” Michael groaned. “Maria said that Max hadn’t talked it over with Grace yet. She was to distraught last night after the disclosure by the doctor to really share anything useful with Maxwell. So today is the surgery and Max will probably know more as Grace recovers?”
“That poor child,” Isabel said again as she thought of her own children. She and Kyle had waited for children and she knew she would have been a mess in high school if she had gotten pregnant.
But to know you were pregnant and to lose it just as you are discovering the pregnancy had to be a conflicting set of emotions for her niece she thought. “I wonder how Max is handling it.”
“Maria said he’s handling it better than she would if the situations were reversed. I think the fact Grace is in the hospital is over-riding any anger he is feeling over the event in question,” Michael said.
“Let’s hope that Grace can recover from this with some ease,” Kyle sighed.
*****
“Can I go in and see her,” Jake was asking as they walked back into the hospital and walked towards the elevator to take them to Grace’s floor. Maria and Jake had joined Max for lunch at a diner near the hospital. And now they were returning to the hospital or for both Maria and Jake; it would be the first time at the hospital that day since they were advised to stay away while Grace was in surgery. So, both mother and son had slept in and gotten a late start to the day.
Jake as he walked could sense the increased tension in Grace’s father. He could sense something had happened that his neither mother nor Max was letting him in on and he hoped it wasn’t something to do with Grace’s health. “She is alright, isn’t she?”
“Of course,” Max said as he walked.
“Okay,” Jake said. He wondered if the true reason for Grace’s surgery was truly a dangerous enflamed appendix or something else more serious and they just weren’t telling him the truth. “So, can I see her?” he asked as they got off on the floor that Grace was residing on and they walked down the hallway.
“Sure, go ahead,” Max said as he watched Jake take off for the room in question while he and Maria held back at a slow pace.
“Well,” Maria asked. “You look like you will blow at any time. I gather you talked to your daughter before we met for a late lunch.”
“I did,” Max said as they walked into the waiting lounge while Jake went in and visited with a newly awaken Grace. “You can relax it’s not Jake who was responsible for putting my daughter in this predicament.”
“Thank god,” Maria blew out a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“Hey, I would say the same thing if the situation was reversed,” Max smiled. “It was a boy.” he said.
“Wow,” Maria said. “Did you tell Grace?”
“Yes,” Max said. “And she is going through a flood of emotions as one would expect. She isn’t ready to give the identity of the guy in question. All she would tell me is that I would hate him and that even she thinks he’s a jerk.” he grunted. “So, it’s not a case of my going insane at the thought of any guy with my daughter. But this is guy is a real jerk. So now I have no idea what that could mean. And want to know what else she said? Oh, yeah this pretty good, if Jake were to find out. He would be in jail cell. So, she wants to be the one to tell him which means he has to know who it is.”
“Damn it,” Maria muttered.
“I know,” Max said. “At least Dr. Davis said that she should be able to release Grace tomorrow which is good news. I have made airplane reservations for tomorrow night for all of us which allows Grace once she’s released a chance to rest before we get on a plane and fly across the country.”
“Work?” Maria asked.
“I called home last night and talked to my parents and told them some of what has happened. Naturally Dad was okay with me taking more time off. He will take the appointments that can’t be postponed, and I will be back in the office on Tuesday.” Max said. “Michael is going to call the school I assume.”
“Yes,” Maria said as she checked her watch and whistled. “Look at the time, I have to call him.”
“I assume he will be relieved to know Jake is off the hook.” Max said.
“Yeah,” Maria admitted. “I know times like these must make you miss Liz,” she said as they waited in the waiting lounge.
“She’s growing up Maria,” Max said. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done if she had known and come to me with the news about the baby.” he said. “And planned to keep it.”
“You would have been there for her Max. You would have needed time to adjust but you would have been there for your daughter Max. Not only because you are the type of father to support her through whatever may come her way, but she also is a living reminder of Liz. And just as you would have done anything for Liz. You would do anything for your daughter and would have been there all the way no matter how disappointed you may have been in your Grace,” Maria said as she remembered back to the early days after Liz’s death.
At two years’ old, the tiny little girl had been the only thing that kept Max going. The one person in the world that Max could get out of bed for and continue living for because she was something lasting of his wife and it gave him a moment of peace amid his grief.
Max nodded.
“Just please do something for me. Don’t go the overprotective route when you do get her home because you’re just asking for trouble,” Maria said smiling.
Max chuckled. “I won’t make any promises. I just wish Liz was here with me for this.”
*****
“Okay girls,” Beth was saying as she put down the phone as Carrie and Alexandra came into the kitchen. “Party tonight. We’re having group pot luck,” she said as she saw the girls look at each other. “It’s not only adults don’t worry. Serena and Keith are coming with their kids and a friend from work. You know Dr. Alyssa Davis, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, wasn’t she over for the 4th of July barbeque last summer, right?” Alexandra asked as she grabbed a cookie.
“Yes. Anyway, she and her daughter Hayley will be coming over for dinner,” Beth said. “Hayley is 14 years old and is attending the same high school that you two will be attending in the fall so maybe you can ask some questions about the school and the classes you will be taking.”
“Cool,” Alexandra said. “I still have some homework to do so I better get back at it if we are going to have company for dinner.”
“Do you need any help?” Carrie asked. “My homework is finished.”
“I think we’re covered,” Beth said as saw Alexandra leave the kitchen. “But check to make sure we have enough clean plates.”
“Sure,” Carrie said as she went to the cabinet in the dining room.
*****
Upstairs Alexandra sat down at her computer and began doing some more searching some preliminary searching on her Roswell, Crash 1947 paper for school. She put the name,
Maria Deluca Guerin into a search engine and did some searching for some background information. Checking Wikipedia, she read.
Maria Deluca Guerin, born Maria Deluca on January 24, 1984. Born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico by her mother Amy. At age 18 after graduating from West Roswell High School; Maria moved to New York where she pursued a singing and acting career. A one-year stint on “New York Lights” ended when the show was cancelled due to low ratings. She moved back to her hometown where she gave birth to her first child, a son Jacob. Marriage to her high school sweetheart Michael Guerin soon followed. Four more children came in next few years; Elizabeth, Colin, Liam and Isabel (Belle). A writing career blossomed while she raised her kids along with her husband. She currently writes a series of hugely successful science fiction books about a group of alien teenagers and young adults who mix it up with their human counter parts. The most current one “Shock and Awe” out six weeks ago currently is #1 on the New York Best Sellers List. To this day, she and her family continue to reside in Roswell.
Continuing her search Alexandra looked up pictures of the author. “Cute family,” she though as she saw a picture of Maria and what she assumed were her husband and kids.
“Hey,” came a voice as Alexandra turned and saw her twin Carrie coming into the bedroom. “Find anything interesting?”
“I was just searching for some background on the author of
Shock and Awe as she clicked on another site that had a newspaper report of Maria’s wedding. Concentrating on a glimpse of the bride, “Totally bohemian style of wedding dress there,” Alexandra commented as she saw the person the bride was dancing with;
the bride is dancing with the groom’s best man Maxwell Evans.
“Hey,” Carrie said. “Doesn’t he look familiar” as she leaned in and saw the glimpse of the man in the photo?
