It Had To Be You 9 - by Maro Z

A nice long chapter to satisfy you all, hopefully?!

Anyway a few quick comments, at least two comments disappeared from the last chapter, so if I don't reply to you that's probably why. Buzzle hasn't done that for a while, but now it's happening with every chapter:(

Alena (I think it was you that was first!) Thanks for commenting, sorry you got deleted!

Annie - hope she's not too late! He's not the type to end up in another woman's arms, is he?? If he does he's not the man he says he is! And he loves her doesn't he???

Mal K - you're right, it's about time Jess thought about Alex's side of things.

M - it was a natural break in the story. This chapter is longer:)

Angel - I know, Alex deserves a bit of sympathy, he's tried his best and she's started to be a bit selfish??? Not sure he's able to be that hard hearted? He just really wants her!

Nessa - Oh yes! Think it's going to be all guns blazing to the end now:)

Tavita K - the voice of reason??? They couldn't skirt around it for much longer, but has he pushed too hard??

Anyway, thanks so much for the comments!

Here goes the trip to her parents:)
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Jess sat in the car on the road outside the idyllic vicarage for ten minutes before she plucked up the courage to walk to the door. It wasn't her parents that she feared anymore, but what they might say, acknowledgment of things in the past.

She rang the doorbell, an old-fashioned device, where a coil of metal actually pulled a small brass bell, the resulting sound was gentle, but surprisingly loud. She remembered seeing a similar device in a Victorian museum as a child, and had been intrigued by the history of her home for months after.

The figure she could make out through the frosted glass moved slowly towards her, and as the door opened she was shocked to see her mother looking much more frail and old than she ever remembered. She quickly ransacked her brain to work out when she'd last seen her, and was embarrassed to think it was more than a year ago, maybe nearer two.

"Hi Mum!" She offered quietly.

Her mother's head flicked up, her eyes wide in surprise, "Jessica!" It was a soft welcome, and instantly Jess flew into an embrace, again unable to even remember when she'd last had physical contact with her mother.

"Oh Jessica." A bony hand stroked the back of her head and Jess felt a strong waft of emotion. "It's so great to see you!"

The women pulled apart and looked at each other intently. Jess was shocked at how her mother had aged. Her hair had always had a decent smattering of gray, but now there was very little of the dark brown left. Her face was drawn and pale, and she'd lost a large amount of weight.

"How are you Mum?"

She shrugged, "I'm good. I've had a bad bout of flu over Christmas, but I'm getting better."

There was another awkward silence. But Jess couldn't take any more guilt, animosity in her life.

"Mum, I'm sorry I haven't visited for so long. But you know why I've been so absent. I've come here today to try to sort this out. Where's Dad?"

"He's got choir practice until nine." She was still looking at Jess in wonder, "it's so lovely to see you. Come in, do you want tea?"

Jess shook her head, "can we talk?"

He mother nodded slowly, "come into the kitchen, it's warmer there."

Despite her rejecting it, the teapot was still freshly filled before her mother actually sat opposite her at the imposing oak kitchen table.

"So..." she looked at her daughter with a mixture of anxiety and inevitability.

"I bumped into Alex Pattison a few weeks ago."

Her mother flushed in embarrassment, "oh...."

Jess nodded, "oh indeed. I need to know what happened then Mum."

"I...I don't..."

Linking her hands together, she leaned forward, "Mum, this is REALLY important. I'm in crisis here, I really need to know what happened. I know Dad hates me, I know I'm an eternal disappointment to him , but you Mum, you always wanted things to be easier for me, you were just as scared of him as I was."

Her mother looked flustered, "I...but.....No Jessica, I..."

"Mother!" she was firm now. "This is the last chance for us to salvage a relationship. I need answers; otherwise I'm never coming back. I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm not using emotional blackmail, I just need to get over this. It's shaped my life for SO long. Don't you see that?"

A stray tear fell down her mother's cheek, but she couldn't feel sympathy for her, not when her life was in tatters. Then through tears she spoke, "It's my fault your father was so strict. Before you were born....I had an affair. He wasn't like this when I met him. He became more religious after we married. I got really fed up with it all, I was all set to leave him Jess, but I found out about you. There was never a doubt that he wasn't your father, but I was on the cusp of leaving."

Jess was shocked, she'd expected so many things to be said but this was completely off the radar. For some reason she'd not even thought about her mother in all this, never thought that she could be unhappy, that her father influenced her mother's life too.

"Mum," she reached out for her hand, "you never said anything."

Her mother nodded, "I was the adult Jess. I've had guilt and blame rammed into me for almost thirty years, and I had enough guilt of my own. I shouldn't have....Anyway. It was me that he despised, not you. I should've stood up to him, sorted things out, but I was weak....I regret that more than you can ever know."

"You should have left him if you were that unhappy."

Her mother groaned, "I have asked myself why I didn't SO many times! I had nowhere to go, and I had you to think about..."

Jess laughed at the irony, "I think living anywhere else would've been favorable to the torture of living here. It was like a prison. But anyway, I need to talk about the baby."

Her mother almost flinched at the words, because despite all that happened none of them had ever said those exact words. Everyone had skirted around the issue, but never ever acknowledged that she'd been pregnant, that she'd lost a baby. Now they both reeled at Jess's honesty.

"It was Alex's mum, did you know that?"

She nodded, "I realized a long time before that you two were close, I saw you together....I just hoped your Dad didn't find out. But I was so disappointed when Doctor Carmichael came here."

Jess felt tears well, "I didn't plan it Mum, it was an accident..."

"Not disappointed at the baby, but disappointed that you didn't...couldn't tell me. I realized at that moment that how much I failed as a mother." She looked so pitiful that Jess almost relented.

"But you let him send me away!"

Her mother swiped at her eye, "I liked Aunt Mary, I knew you'd do better away from here. And I was right, you've done so well for yourself."

"You never told me any of this, I always thought I was shunned, turned away from you all in disgrace. You were right though, Aunt Mary was brilliant, but I still felt SO rejected." She stood and started to pace the room, trying to take everything in. "I married Alex!" She finally burst out.

"What?" her mother was amazed, her jaw dropping open in surprise. "When?"

Jess stopped and looked at her mother, seeing her so differently, "a few days after I found out that I was pregnant. He wanted us to tell everyone, be together, but I was scared. Of Dad."

"It all makes sense now, he turned up here around that time, wanting to speak to your father...."

"Who? Alex?"

Her mother nodded, then gasped, "oh no...."

"What?"

Watching her mother stand and walk to the sink, keeping her back to her, Jess felt angry all over again, "what? Mother! You have to tell me! I am falling apart here, and this is your only chance to redeem anything! Prove you ARE a good mother. Tell me what happened!"

Turning slowly, her mother looked at her, a haunted look on her pale face, "he got them evicted again, after Alex came here and told your father he loved you, your father called their landlord and said that Alex had been stealing......it was his way of getting him out of the picture I suppose. No one nearby would touch the family after he said that. They moved on and no one saw them again, as far as I know."

"No no no!" Jess was shaking her head, "please no Mum, please tell me he didn't drive Alex away, ruin his life like that."

"I'm sorry Jess."

"Do you think sorry comes close? We were going to be together, he was going to take me away from all this, promised me everything. And my father pulled the rug from under his feet? Is that what you're telling me? That because he's a bastard, an angry horrible man, and you dared to want to get away from him all those years ago that he ruined two lives?" She looked up to the ceiling for a moment, "and they call this religion?"

"No they call it parenting Jessica!" a deep voice boomed from the kitchen door, and both women spun around guiltily to see Eric Summers stood in the doorway, his thick winter coat opened to reveal his dog collar and black shirt. Jess felt the familiar terror that her father had induced in her all her life as his presence towered over the two women.

She was the first to speak though, drawing strength from somewhere she was unsure of, "hello father, suppose this saves me a visit in the future!"

"I don't know what your mother has been telling you...."

Jess silenced him with a raised hand, "she merely clarified a few points, things I didn't know when I was officially a charge in your care."

"We did what we did because we loved you!" he was flippant in his defense.

"Love?" Jess laughed. Suddenly she wasn't scared anymore, she'd beaten this man in so many ways. She stood to face her father. "Even if I waive the years of suppression when you tried to mold me into Mother bloody Teresa, there's how you treated me when I needed support the most. What did you do father? When I'd just lost my baby?"

Her father suddenly flushed, and she could see that his anger was tinted with humility, maybe even regret.

"You sent me away and made Alex's life hell Dad, ruined everything. What parent does that? Shun their child?"

Any weakness that she'd seen in her father had disappeared, "no daughter if mine is bringing up a bastard child in my house! It's wrong, it's immoral......."

Jess suddenly saw red, she needed to see Alex, talk to him, she was getting nowhere here, "there was no bastard child. Don't you get that?"

"There would've been if God hadn't acted."
"Oh my God! You think that's a blessing don't you? You don't care about how much I was hurt, you just care that the problem was 'dealt' with." She was inches from his face now, her nostrils flaring, eyes wide, anger emanating from every pore. "Well the joke is well and truly on you. I was married Dad, still am, to Alex Pattison!"

"That worthless bastard creating another bastard! What is the world coming to?"

Jess had to fight to resist hitting him, she wanted to hurt him for all the hurt he'd instilled on her.....and Alex, she acknowledged. "The baby wouldn't have been illegitimate, we were married. But regardless of 'what' it was, the one thing it would definitely have been was your grandchild, your only link to the future. After today you will never see me or any future members of this family again."

She picked up her coat, "I'm going to try to apologize for your actions to Alex, and maybe, just, maybe I can get over this hideous mess once and for all."

"You can't go Jess, please." It was her mother.

She turned face the devastated woman and took her hands, "I need to go and see Alex. I've got to apologize..."

Her mother ran after her to the door, "you'll call?"

Smiling she hugged her mother, "yes I will, I promise. But I can't come here again mother, you understand that? But come to see me? Any time?"

Her mother nodded, batting away tears as she watched her daughter walk away.

She drove like a banshee back to the City, but as she approached her home, she suddenly realized that she had no address for Alex. She had no idea where he was staying. She wanted to speak to him, in person, not over the phone, she needed the chance to see his face, to explain, to hear his story.

She called Evelyn, "Do you know where Alex would be staying?"

"Hi best friend Eve, sorry I haven't been around for a few days!" Evelyn answered sarcastically, but not nastily.

Jess grinned, so thankful that she had a practical and reliable best friend, "Hey Eve! Sorry I've been absent, but I've been to my parents tonight and now I need to speak to Alex."

"Shit Jess! I can't even imagine what that means, you ok? Need Auntie Evelyn to come over?"

It was such a welcoming thought to lose herself in her comfortable friendship, but she had to see Alex, now whilst it was ll still fresh in her mind, "Aren't you out gallivanting with some hot men?"

Eve laughed, "the only good looking man I know is married to my best mate!"

"Touché!" Jess sighed, "I'm sorry Eve, this has been such a one sided friendship for SO long! It's just I'm in such a crisis at the moment!"

"So where do things stand with Alex?"

Jess sighed, flopping into her Chesterfield armchair, "he walked out cos I still refuse to rake over the past, but he hinted at my parents being more involved in all that happened than I realized...."

"So you went to see them?"

Jess closed her eyes and sighed, "oh yes. Mother was remorseful and grateful I'd arrived, then my manipulative, evil father arrived and thanked the Lord that my baby died."

There was a prolonged silence from the phone until Eve finally answered, "shit. Way to go Dad of the year!"

Jess laughed, "I'm past upset, past surprised Eve, I just need to talk to Alex, finally!"

She could almost hear Eve thinking out loud, "there are some company owned apartments in....um....." she was obviously wracking her brain, "Devonish Street. Do you know it? Near the park? He may be there, it's the only place I can think of. Why don't you phone him?"

"Because I'm too scared, and if I see him I can't chicken out!"

So half an hour later, still in her work van, she was parked across the road from the address Eve had given her unsure what to do next. She was almost a sleep when a knock on the car window to her right jolted her, scaring her half to death. Turning she came eye to eye with a livid Alex. With a smile, anticipating an awesome fight....again, she stepped out into the street.
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Hope you enjoyed!
Next chapter soon, MZ.