|
|
Sonny stared into her face for a
few moments, just taking in her words.
"Pregnant?" He whispered.
Brenda bit her lip, nodding. "It's
yours, I just couldn't keep that from
you like I did before...I already
hate myself enough for lying to you."
She turned to look into his face.
"My life has been such a mess, Sonny,
these last ten years or so, but
the best times of my life have been
these last few years...being a
mother. Now I can give my children the
life and love I never got from
parents. And I-" She bit her lip to stop
the quivering. She knew she
was about to burst into tears "-and I know
how you felt about your baby with
Lily, you couldn't leave your child
like Mike had left you and I'm
so sorry, so sorry for doing that to you
Sonny. It was for merely selfish
reasons and I'm-" She shook her head as
the tears rolled down her face.
"Can you ever, ever forgive me for
betraying you?"
Sonny smiled. "The old Sonny would
have said no. But I hurt you too,
Brenda, more than you could ever
hurt me. Don't cry, sweetheart, it's
alright. Don't cry." He brushed
the tears from her face. "You know I'll
be there for you every step of
the way, don't you, baby?" He traced his
finger across her cheek.
Brenda nodded. For some reason,
she began to cry harder. "Sonny..." She
whispered it softly, gravely, and
he tilted her chin up.
"Close your eyes, baby," Sonny told
her softly into her ear. She
complied, and parted her lips softly.
He kissed her, slowly,
passionately, and then pulled back,
leaving her dizzy with emotion. He
nuzzled her neck, and kissed her
throat. "I've got to go," He whispered.
Brenda nodded, even though she silently
begged him to stay. She wipped
away her tears. "Thank you for
coming."
"Thank you for telling me." Sonny
kissed her hand. "Mind if I come back
tomorrow to formally meet my children?"
Brenda laughed and stood up. "I'd
love it if you came back. I'll buy
some food, and you can cook for
us."
Sonny giggled. "Why thank you for that lovely invitation."
Brenda shrugged, "No problem. I've got more where that came from."
"Tomorrow, 7ish?" Brenda nodded,
and tucked her cascading hair behind
her ear. Sonny sighed. "God, you're
still beautiful after all these
years. More beautiful than I've
ever seen you."
Brenda blushed slightly. "Must be
the motherhood. I love it. I'd have a
thousand children-"
"And you'd still be the most beautiful
creature in the world to me. I
mean it." He gave her one of his
intense stares before turning and
walking down the pathway, got into
his car and drove away.
Brenda stared after him without
even realizing what she was doing. She
didn't even hear Lois' car pull
up, Brooke Lynn's screeches as she
joined her god-brother and sister
in the yard, or Lois' thick Brooklyn
accented voice call, "Hey, Bren!"
It was only after Lois swatted her
in the head with her long nails did
Brenda stir. "Oww!" Brenda gasped,
and smiled when she saw her friend,
"Lo! What was that for?"
"Just wanted to see if you were
alive, is all." She sat next to her best
friend and wrapped an arm around
her shoulders. "So, I drive up, you
have this look upon your face...the
same look you used to have when you
were with Sonny."
Brenda cleared her throat, nodding.
"Sonny and I are gonna have a baby,
Lo."
Lois smiled and playfully bumped
her shoulder against Brenda's. "So, you
told him the truth." It wasn't
a question.
"Yup. He didn't...he's not mad.
He was...Lois, I think that I'm falling
again." Brenda looked over into
her friend's face. "And this time, it's
not, it's not the way it was before.
He's so much different now. He
tells me things without hesitating,
he doesn't get mad at the stupidest
things, and when he tells me he
loves me, I...I dunno, it does something
to me that it didn't do before."
"What?"
"It made me hopeful," Brenda sighed.
"Being in love with Sonny was the
most wonderful, but frightful thing
I had ever felt. Now, it doesn't
feel that way. It feels good. God,
it feels incredible."
"So, what you're saying is you're in love with Sonny?"
Brenda pulled her hair back and
upinto a sloppy bun. She tucked the
tendrils of her hair behind her
ear and shrugged. "I'm falling, Lois.
The thing is...I don't think I
want to stop."
"They're coming out great Carly.
At least I think they are." Brenda
said into the phone the next afternoon
sitting on the entry floor of her
house. The kids watched a
video a few yards away. "I think Lucy'll
love them."
"When are we supposed to show them to her again?"
"Ummm.... Hold on." Brenda
shuffled through some papers and found her
date book. She flipped through
it. "Next Tuesday at nine."
"Where?"
"The Lighthouse."
"I am so happy for her and Kevin."
"I know. When she told me
that they were finally getting married I told
her it was about time."
"I can't believe she asked us to design her wedding gown."
"Well she liked the dress we did
for the Nurses Ball. I think as long
as it's not red she'll love it."
"'Scuse me?"
"Long story."
"Abridged version."
"When she married Alan there was
a mix-up at the dress shop and she got
this garish, jungle red monstronsity."
"You're kidding."
"No and it came with this big brimmed red hat. I've seen pictures."
"Poor Lucy."
"Anyway for this walk down the aisle
she wants a cream-colored dress,
about down to the knees, off the
shoulder and no bows."
"You can handle it."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"Does she want gloves?"
"Oh you know what, I didn't ask."
"Call and ask right now or else you'll forget."
"Thanks Carly."
"No problem. Okay so I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yep. Twelve at the newly renovated Outback."
"Bye and don't forget to-"
"Call Lucy. Bye Carly."
"Bye Bren." Brenda pressed flash and then dialed the Lighthouse.
"Hello?"
"Lucy, it's Brenda."
"Brenda, oh I'm so glad you called.
Listen did I give you the
specifications for the wedding
dress?"
"Yes you did and that's part of
the reason I'm calling. Carly and I
were wondering, do you want gloves
with your dress?"
"Oh no. I had gloves the last
time and we all know how that turned
out."
"Right. Okay Lucy no gloves. Got it."
"So how are the drawings coming?"
"Wonderfully."
"Oooooh I can't wait."
The doorbell rang just then.
"Well you're gonna have to because I have
to go. I'll see ya on Tuesday."
"Okay. Ta!"
"Ta!" Brenda hung up the phone
and hopped up to answer the door. She
swung it open and was faced with
grocery bags. She giggled. "Hello
back there?"
"Very funny. Can you direct me to the kitchen?"
"Yeah. Here give me one of the bags."
"No way. No lifting."
"Sonny grocery bags are not going
to send me into premature labor. Now
give." She said snatching
a bag from him, turning around, and marching
into the kitchen. Sonny laughed
and followed her after closing the door
behind him. "So what are
you making?"
"Veal parm."
"That's Morgan's all-time favorite."
"For real?"
"Yeah."
"Well for desert I brought a chocolate mousse cake from The Outback."
"That's Scorpio's."
"Really? You're not just trying to make me feel better?"
"Would I do that? Seriously
though I'm pretty damn sure they're going
to love you."
"What about their mother?" he asked softly.
"She's working on it. That's all she can give right now."
"It's enough. For now."
"C'mon let's get cooking.
Oh but first I've gotta clean up my drawings
in the living room. Be right
back." Brenda left the kitchen and Sonny
started taking things out of the
bags. Brenda came back in a few
minutes later.
"What are the kids doing?"
"Watching tapes of that old show Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
"You're kidding."
"Nope. They both love
it. Lois got them the entire tape set for
Chirstmas. They watch one
a week at least."
"Remind me to thank her."
"Tell me about it." She grinned. "Do you want something to drink?"
"What do you have?"
"Well I don't have a lot of alcohol.
I usually make Jason or Ned bring
their own if they come for dinner
but I do have a bottle of wine Alexis
gave me about a year ago."
"What kind?"
"I'm not sure. Gimme a minute."
She turned and started looking through
the shelves of her kitchen.
Sonny watched her and thought silently,
I'll give you all the time in
the world baby. All the time
in the world.
"Bren?"
"Yeah?"
"I was thinking."
"Always dangerous."
"Ha-ha. I'm so amused. Anyway you only have three bedrooms right?"
"Yeah. I guess I should start looking into real estate, huh?"
"What do you think about us moving
into together?"
Brenda dropped the bottle of wine,
and cursed as it hit the floor. She
fell to her knees to pick it up,
thanking God it didn't break and
shatter into a million pieces.
"M-m-moving in together?" Brenda stuttered.
Sonny bit his lip to come from laughing
at her display. "Yeah. I mean,
the penthouse isn't really mine
anymore, it's Jason and his family's...I
want to be with my family. And
since you're pregnant, you know that I
want to monitor you 24/7, I can't
let you out of my sight."
Brenda smiled as she started to
uncork the wine. She struggled with the
screw, tucked her hair behind her
ear, and sat back on her heels. "Yeah,
but, Sonny, then people will start
to get the idea that we
are...well...you know..."
"No, I don't."
Brenda sighed and rolled her eyes.
"INVOLVED. And we're not. We're just
two really good friends who happened
to sleep together one night-"
Sonny laughed. "We may be friends now, baby, but we weren't always."
Brenda smiled at the memories. "We were something, weren't we?"
"So, is that a yes?"
Brenda sighed. "Alright, fine, you
can move in. But you sleep in the
extra bedroom, not mine, understand?"
Sonny shrugged. "I'll wear you down
eventually, baby. You know that you
can't resist me for long."
"No, I don't know that." Brenda snapped playfully.
Sonny smiled and peeked back into
the grocery bag. "Alright." He said.
"Let's get cracking."
****
Half hour later and they were still
cooking. Well, Sonny was, Brenda was
sitting at the small kitchen table
doodling on a pad.
"Sonny, that smells delicious," Brenda moaned.
Sonny smiled and sat down
across from her. "It tastes better than it
looks."
"You certaintly are full of yourself,
aren't you?" She was grinning
though.
Sonny shrugged, "Ahh, not really.
I just never really got the chance to
cook where I was before and now
that I'm back home, it's like I...I
can't stop!!!"
Brenda beamed. "Well, I'm glad that
I'll be able to sample more of your
food in the future."
Sonny squeezed her knee. "You and
that baby of ours'll be fed like
you've never been fed before. I
promise."
Brenda looked down at her hands.
"Yeah, well, we all know how well your
promises worked out before, now
don't we."
Sonny raised his eyebrows. "Well, I guess I deserve that."
"Good, because you do." She stood
up. "What do you say we do this? What
do you say-"
"Brenda."
"What?" She turned to look at him, her long hair slamming into her face.
Sonny sighed. "I'm trying to make
up for that here. Can't you see that?
I'm trying to forget it. I thought
that you could-"
"You thought that I could forget
something like that?" Brenda placed a
hand on her hip. "I haven't even
BEGUN to *forgive* you yet, Sonny! I'm
just begining to know what it feels
like to trust you, Sonny, and you
want me to FORGET!"
"NO!" Sonny urged. "I was going
to say that I thought you could at least
stop rubbing it in my face. I'm
not proud of what I've done to you,
sweetheart. I'm not proud of the
fact that I broke your heart, that I
broke *you*, you think I wanted
to do that?" When she didn't answer, he
said, "Answer me!"
Brenda looked up and shook her head.
"I don't know what to think. I
never do." Her eyes glistened with
tears.
"Well, I didn't. I like to think
that I'm better than that, now, even
though I wasn't always. And I like
to think that you think better of me
now. But you wanna talk about faults?
What about keeping my children
from me all of these years?"
"I thought you said you forgave me for that!" Brenda cried.
Sonny looked down at his feet. "Yeah,
well, I'm trying, sweetheart. You
know what?"
"What?" Brenda searched his face,
the tears beginning to slid down her
cheeks.
"I'm not as stupid as you thought
I was. I knew Morgan and Scorpio were
my children, long before you told
me."
Brenda's heart sank. The tears slid
slowly, one by one down her cheeks,
but she didn't weep or sob. "Jason
told you."
"Before he did, and don't get mad
at him. I forced it out of him. I know
why you didn't tell me, baby, I
can even respect that. But forgive it?
That has to take time. A lot of
time."
Brenda nodded her head. "I want you to know something, Sonny."
"What?" He whispered, almost coldly.
"The second I knew I had life in
my body, life beyond my own, life that
we had created together...I felt
healed. You did that for me, Sonny. And
I'm so grateful for it." She bit
her lip and swipped at her tears.
"More grateful than you could possibly
understand."
"I love you, Brenda." Sonny told
her again. He was going to tell her
over and over, until she'd never
doubt it again.
"I know you do." Brenda whispered,
cupping her hands against her nose.
She pushed them outward, and cleaned
her face of tears, only for them to
be replaced again. "I do. I won't
doubt it ever again, Sonny."
He walked over to her slowly. Taking
her face in his hands, he
whispered, "I love you so much."
He took her hand and placed it over his
heart. "I love you." Brenda watched
as he lifted her hand and kissed it.
Brenda smiled through her tears.
"I feel your heart beat," she
whispered.
"It beats for you."
Brenda felt the torrent coming and
she pulled back, brushing her hair
from her eyes. "Wow. Uh...hey,
whaddya say we sit down and get this over
with? Yeah, I'd say it's about
time."
Next
Part
Second
Chance Menu
Main
Menu