Nervously, Vanessa looked over her shoulder as she walked into the diner. She had to use the best of her acting abilities to stay cool when she told her husband she was going down to the corner drugstore for a few moments. She wasn't sure that he was completely convinced, but at least he let her go without argument and without following after her.
The diner was nearly empty, only one table was occupied. When the little bell above the door tinkled, the people seated at the table looked up at her.
Cassie jumped up to greet her. "You made it," she said with relief as she led her stepmother to the table. She offered Vanessa her chair and then introduced her to the others.
"I'll let you talk in private," Lawrence said as he rose from the table and walked over to the lunch counter.
"We'll be right over here," Cassandra assured Vanessa before joining Lawrence.
"Thanks, hon," Vanessa smiled at Cassandra. She turned to Reese and Blaine who were sitting opposite from her. "I hate to be rude, but can we make this meeting brief? If I'm gone too long my husband will be wondering where I've gone."
"Of course," Reese replied, taking some papers out of her briefcase. "First I need to ask you a few questions, just to make sure you are who we're looking for."
"Fine, but how do I know you are who you say you are," Vanessa said warily. "I'm not usually so suspicious, but now I think I have good reason to be."
"I understand. I have all of the official papers here regarding the inheritance. If you have any doubts about their legitimacy, you can have them looked over by any legal expert."
Vanessa nodded reluctantly. "What do you need to ask me?"
Lawrence glanced over at Cassandra to see her watching him, with a huge grin on her face. He managed a small smile in return.
"I'm sorry," Cassandra apologized. "I don't mean to stare. I just amazed that we're cousins."
Lawrence nodded, "Yes, it was a surprise."
"I mean, I knew when I saw you before that there was something familiar about you, but I didn't know why. But I should have known sooner."
"How?" Lawrence asked, confused.
"By the way my dad freaked out when Eileen mentioned your name to me."
"Eileen mentioned me?" Lawrence asked, but tried to sound neutral about it.
"She said you were tutoring her," Cassandra replied. For a moment she seemed oblivious, then she perked up, "I think she . . ." Cassandra cut her thought short with a laugh, deciding she shouldn't say too much. "Nevermind. So tell me something about yourself. Since we're family, we should get to know each other."
When Vanessa finished answering her questions, Reese sorted through her papers. "Of course, we'll need verification, such as your birth certificate and adoption records before you can recieve the inheritance, but I believe you are the person we've been looking for," Reese smiled. "These papers outline the details and included is a copy of the will."
Vanessa glanced through the papers before looking up at Reese. "I can't believe my birth mother thought of me after all these years. I wish I had known before."
Reese nodded with a sad smile. "She must have cared about you very much . . .Oh, but there's even better news than the inheritance! You have two half-sisters. When you come back to Bay Pointe, you'll have to meet them."
"I'd like that," Vanessa said quietly, but at the same time she was wondering if she would ever go back to Bay Pointe again. Vanessa stood to leave, "I really should get back."
"Wait!" Blaine interrupted. "You're not going back to him, are you?"
"If I don't, he'll get suspicious."
"If you do, you could be in danger!" Blaine protested. "If he's at all suspicious, who knows what he'll do to get you out of the way. His ex-wife caught on to his lies and he had her committed to an insane asylum."
Vanessa gasped in disbelief, "No."
"It's true," Cassandra insisted as she joined the group. "Please, you have to come with us, Vanessa, before . . .he's coming."
"What? What are you talking about?"
The group stared after Cassandra as she hurried towards the door.
"I'll see what's wrong," Lawrence offered, motioning for the other's not to get up.
Lawrence started to follow Cassandra outside, but when he saw her approach a man on the sidewalk, he stopped in his tracks.
Squinting through the glass, Lawrence could clearly make out the man's features. He was taken aback. He hadn't seen his uncle in years, since he was just a kid, but he immediately recognized him. As he watched Silas and Cassandra talk on the sidewalk, all of the memories and history came back to him. He was determined to make Silas pay for the wrongs he had done him in the past.
After a tiring dinner at her sister's apartment, Alma walked into the house to find Bernice seated on the living room sofa, crying.
"What's wrong?" Alma asked her roommate.
"Oh!" Bernice wailed. For a moment she was too upset to speak. She tried to explain, but her words were almost unintelligible between her sobs. After straining to understand, Alma managed to pick out a few words.
"Dead?" Alma gasped. "Someone died? Who?"
"Boopsie!" Bernice uttered and started crying even harder.
"Boopsie?" Alma questioned. "Oh, one of your cats."
Bernice nodded vigorously as she blew her nose on a handkerchief.
Alma stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. She felt like she should say something, but she wasn't sure what. "I'm sorry . . .but at least it was just a pet and you still have the others."
"How can you say that!" Bernice shouted between tears. "She was one of my babies. They're all I have!"
Almost an hour later, after apologizing to Bernice and managing to console her enough so she could get some rest, Alma finally turned in herself.
As she turned back the covers, she sighed, thinking about how sad Bernice's life was. In the time that she had lived there, her roommate had never had a visitor and she rarely went out. Alma knew that she had at least a few distant friends or relatives that she occasionally wrote letters to and rarely spoke on the phone with. From what Bernice said, it hadn't always been that way with her. It sounded like all of the people in her life had slowly slipped away.
When Alma crawled into bed and turned out the light, the darkness seemed to close in on her and she suddenly felt very alone. She wondered what her life would be like in another 30 or 40 years. Would it be very different than now or would she too just slowly slip away?
That night Alma dreamed that she was sitting in the corner of a room that was filled with people.
"Oh, mom, it's so good to see you!"
Alma looked up to see two women hugging. She stared a moment at the elderly woman and realized that the "mom" the younger woman was happy to see was none other than her sister, Amanda.
"It's good to see you too and the children. My, how they've grown."
Alma glanced over to see an elderly Andrew entertaining an adorable pair of children, a little boy and a little girl.
"Is my little sister coming?" the young woman asked.
"Not until tomorrow," Amanda replied. "She has one more final to take before she can come home from university."
"Mom, Dad." Alma turned to see a handsome young couple enter the room to her right. "Guess what," the young man said as he held the woman next to him close, "We're going to have a baby!"
As everyone else in the room congratulated the happy couple, Alma sat motionless in her chair. She felt so removed from the scene until someone said, "Aunt Alma, I didn't see you there."
"Yes, we invited her," Amanda's voice remarked with a sigh. "Poor, lonely, old Alma. How sad that she never had a family of her own . . .she doesn't have anyone else."
Alma awoke suddenly with a gasp. What a disturbing dream!
She laid back in bed and stared at the ceiling for awhile as the alarm clock on the night stand quietly ticked away the seconds.
"How ridiculous!" Alma scoffed. "It's all that baby talk this evening and then Bernice . . . It's never going to be like that," she thought stubbornly and rolled over to her side.
She frowned, for a moment having doubts. "But what is my life going to be like? What do I want it to be?" She stared into the darkness, unsure how to answer those questions.
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