Written by MichaelSeptember 19, 2020September 25, 2020

Episode 1037

Previously…
– Jason was shocked to learn that Sabrina had aided Helen’s efforts to run the DNA test that exposed Peter’s true paternity.
– After Loretta blackmailed Natalie into letting her stay in Natalie and Spencer’s home, Bree opted to move out and go live with her father instead.
– Molly remembered arguing with Caleb before she collapsed and was hospitalized. The stress of the memory caused her to go into labor, weeks before her due date.

“Have you heard anything?” Christian Taylor asks, his body thrumming with nervousness, as he rushes back to the waiting area inside King’s Bay Memorial Hospital.

His twin brother lifts his attention from his phone, where he is busy watching TikTok videos, and rolls his eyes. “You were in the bathroom for, like, thirty seconds.”

“That’s long enough to miss something,” Christian says.

“Well, you didn’t miss anything,” Caleb tells him.

“Good. I’m worried about Mom and the baby, that’s all.” Christian slides down into the plastic-framed chair beside his brother. “This is too early for her to go into labor.”

Caleb turns his focus back toward the video playing on a loop on his phone.

“Are you not even worried?” Christian presses him.

“Dude.” Caleb jerks his head back toward Christian. “Of course I’m worried. But not much we can do besides wait. Unless you went to med school while I wasn’t looking.”

“No. I know. I wish there was something we could do.”

“We’re here if Mom and Dad need anything, right?”

“Right.” Christian lets out a heavy sigh as the shriek of a phone sounds from the nearby nurses’ station. “She’s been pretty good about taking it easy. She hasn’t even been to the office in weeks. I wonder what happened–”

“It happened. It doesn’t matter why,” Caleb snaps.

“Okay. Jeez.”

The twins lapse into quiet as Caleb attempts to pay attention to his TikTok feed. As much as he tries, however, he cannot block out the memories of his confrontation with his parents shortly before Brent yelled up the stairs that they needed to get Molly to the hospital; he had hoped Molly would never remember that they fought right before the last time she was rushed to the hospital — let alone that his parents think he would have left his pregnant mother on the floor unconscious.

He is yanked from his agonizing thoughts when the doors of the nearest elevator open and the boys’ grandmother bustles out, her panicked gaze scanning the area until she spots them.

“Boys!” Paula Fisher calls as she hurries toward them. “How’s your mother? How’s the baby?”

“Haven’t heard anything yet,” Caleb says as he stands up and stuffs his phone into the pocket of his black joggers. “Dad’s back there with her.”

“Oh, dear.” Paula covers her mouth with her hands. “Molly and this baby — they have to be all right. They just have to.”

—–

In the delivery room, two nurses shuffle around, checking monitors and making notes on a chart. Molly lies in bed, her hospital gown crinkling as she shifts around, trying desperately — and in vain — to get comfortable.

“Another contraction?” Brent asks from her bedside.

Molly shakes her head, squeezing her eyes against the discomfort. “Not yet. It’s been so long that I almost forgot how miserable labor is.”

She pauses to groan as a wave of nearly overwhelming pain rocks her body.

“Did anyone get a hold of Dr. Bader yet?” she asks.

Brent takes her hand as he tells her, “No one can reach her. But she’s in a different time zone. She might be asleep.”

“We have an O.B. coming over right now,” one of the nurses, a middle-aged woman with close-cropped, artificially blonde hair says.

Molly drops her head backward onto the elevated pillow. “This is all happening so fast. And I can’t believe my doctor isn’t even in town.”

“She’s had this trip planned for months,” Brent says. “And she didn’t think you’d be delivering for at least another month.”

“We definitely don’t have another month,” Molly manages to say before another wave hits her. She lets out a guttural moan.

“Okay,” she says through a gasp as she squeezes Brent’s hand. “That’s another contraction.”

Overhead, the sun is slowly sinking behind the tall evergreen trees that dominate the skyline, bathing the sky in a pink-and-orange sherbet glow. Jason Fisher stands beside his car in the parking lot outside Edge of Winter Arena, tapping the toe of his brown leather boat shoe impatiently against the pavement. When the door of Thaw Coffee & Tea opens at last, he emits a sigh — not one of relief so much as one of anticipation — and marches toward Sabrina Gage.

“Jason. What are you doing here?” she asks with confusion. “I have to finish work for my class–”

“I know. But this is important.”

“Okay,” Sabrina says, dragging out the word as her befuddlement turns to alarm. “What’s going on?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you…?” Her dark eyes dart from side to side, as if they might find the answer to this riddle somewhere nearby. “I don’t understand.”

“One of the things I’ve always admired about you is how honest you are. How important scruples are to you.”

A tense beat passes between them.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sabrina says. “I’m not lying about having work for my photography class. Is that it? Do you think I’m brushing you off–”

“No.” He sets his jaw, every muscle taut with the frustration of this situation. “I know about the DNA test.”

It takes a handful of seconds, but horror overtakes her expression. She steps backward.

“What happened?” she asks at last.

“I know about the DNA test,” he repeats through gritted teeth. “Helen told my mom, and my mom told me without realizing it was a big deal.”

“I can explain.”

“There isn’t a lot to explain. And it sounds like you’re admitting it. You helped Helen with Peter’s DNA test?”

Sabrina squeezes her eyes closed, bracing against the pain, and then admits, “Yes. I– I felt weird about it at the time. But she convinced me that it was the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do? You helped her make a fool of me at my wedding!”

“That wasn’t what I wanted. Jason, that was never what I wanted.” Every syllable out of Sabrina’s mouth drips with desperation. “I felt stuck. Helen convinced me that you needed to know the truth–”

“Not like that!”

“I had no idea that was how it was going to go.” She intertwines her fingers and works them roughly between one another as she searches for an explanation. “I picked up a can Spencer was drinking from and brought it to Helen. That was it.”

Jason’s eyes narrow at her. “And then you sat there while I was humiliated at my wedding. You comforted me about finding out Natalie had lied and Peter wasn’t my son — and you never said a damn thing.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Jason. I’m so sorry. Helen lied to me–”

“What, she told you she needed Spencer’s can to recycle?”

“She told me the results said you were the father.” Sabrina runs both hands through her raven hair in exasperation. “She lied to me before the wedding. I thought you were Peter’s father until she announced it.”

“Why would Helen lie about that? She had been gunning for Natalie since the second we started dating.”

“I don’t know. Jason, I’m telling you the truth. I swear.”

He stares at her and finds it difficult to fathom how the sweet, honest woman he has come to know could have been hiding this from him all along.

“You’re telling me the truth now,” he says. “Which means you’ve been keeping it from me this entire time.”

“I know I’ve screwed up,” she pleads. “But I did think you deserved to know the truth. I convinced myself that I’d be helping you by getting it out.”

“Helping me?”

“I never thought it would come out in front of everyone the way it did. I never thought–”

“No. You didn’t think.”

“Jason…”

“I can’t do this.” He spins his key ring on his index finger. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Please. Just wait. Let’s talk–”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Jason says. “The time to talk was before I was publicly humiliated and heartbroken.”

He turns and beelines back toward his car.

“Jason, I’m so sorry,” Sabrina says, her eyes brimming with hot tears. But his only response is to get into the car, start the engine, and lock the door, never once glancing at her even though she watches in anguish as he drives away from her.

—–

“What do you mean, she’s not coming?”

“I mean exactly that,” Conrad Halston says across the threshold of his townhouse. “Which is the exact same thing I said to you over the phone earlier.”

His ex-wife plants her hands on her hips and glares back at him. She wears a cropped camel-colored blazer over a white-and-black striped t-shirt, with skinny jeans and a pair of black stilettos; her auburn hair is in its usual wavy bob style.

“Why didn’t Bree call me herself, then?” Natalie demands.

“Probably because she knew you’d have some sort of outsized reaction — like, for instance, showing up here to pick her up even though she asked for a rain check.”

“Where is she?” Natalie strains to see past him and into the house. “Bree! It’s Mom!”

“She already left to meet Marcus,” Conrad tells her.

“This was supposed to be our girls’ night,” Natalie says, her voice softening with sadness. “I barely get any time with her as it is.”

“Because you have a convicted felon living in your house.”

“I told you, Loretta wouldn’t hurt a–” But Natalie cuts herself off and lets out a frustrated grunt instead. “That’s beside the point. Bree and I were supposed to have dinner out. Loretta has nothing to do with that.”

“Natalie, she’s a teenager,” Conrad says. “She’s going to want to spend less time with her parents these days regardless.”

“You know, I’m surprised you’re allowing her to flake like this. I drove all the way over here.”

“I called you and told you not to come because Bree wanted to reschedule.”

She stammers over a few false starts before saying, “This isn’t fair. And you’re letting her do this just to stick it to me.”

Conrad’s eyes widen. “Natalie, believe me: the last thing I have any interest in doing is winding you up even more than usual.”

“Well,” she says, jabbing her immaculately manicured index finger in his face, “that’s exactly what you’ve done. And I’m not going to forget it!”

“Okay,” he says with the exhausted resignation of someone who has been dealing with this behavior from her for nearly two decades.

“Thanks for nothing, Conrad.” She quickly descends the stairs back down to the driveway, making sure that her heels clack a little louder than necessary against the cement for emphasis.

—–

Caleb uses both hands to hold a tray with three coffees in it as he exits the hospital’s ground-floor café and heads back toward the elevator bank. He doesn’t even particularly want a coffee, but when his grandmother suggested that she could use one, he jumped at the chance; anything to get away from that pressure cooker of a waiting area, although the physical distance hasn’t done as much as he’d hoped to wipe away his guilt over what is going on with his mom.

“Caleb?” a voice says from several yards away. He turns and is alarmed to see Claire Fisher, clad in blue scrubs and with her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, coming toward him.

“Hey,” he says uneasily.

“What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

“It’s, uh, my mom.” His gaze drops to the white plastic coffee lids. “She’s having the baby.”

“Really? She’s not– it has to be too soon, doesn’t it?”

He nods and, with a heavy sigh, forces himself to look up at her. “Yeah. It’s pretty early.”

Claire touches a hand to her brow as she processes this.

“I’m sending all the good thoughts I have her way,” she says. “Please give everyone my best. Or don’t, if you don’t think they’d take it well right now.”

He puts on as positive a smile as he can muster. “That’s nice of you. I know you’re like, not super-happy with my mom and dad.”

“I’m upset about… what happened, of course. But I never, ever would have left your mother that day if I’d thought she was in medical trouble.” She barely gets the words out before stopping herself; she holds up a hand to indicate that she’s putting on the brakes. “And I don’t need to burden you with any of that. Get back up to your family, okay? I’m thinking of all of you.”

“Thanks.”

She takes a step past him and continues on her way. Caleb stares at the elevator bank, not too far in the distance, but then finds himself swiveling around instead of walking toward it.

“Hey, Claire?” he says.

She stops and looks back at him. “Yeah?”

Caleb pauses as a nurse pushes a patient in a wheelchair through the gap between them. He gulps hard, hating this position in which he’s found himself.

“They know you didn’t leave her,” he says.

Claire reacts with unfettered surprise. “What do you mean?”

He hesitates, not even sure how to explain this, and finally just says, “They know. Believe me.” With that, he turns back and heads for the elevators.

Claire remains where he left her, her face scrunched in confusion and her mind swirling as she attempts to make sense of what the teenager just told her.

—–

“Come on, Mol. Push! You’ve got this!” Brent says.

Molly’s heavy, rhythmic breathing dominates the delivery room. Brent feels sweat pouring down his forehead, and he would wipe it away if Molly didn’t have both his hands clutched in a death grip. Then again, he figures, whatever discomfort he is feeling must be only a fraction of what she is going through.

“You’re very close,” says Dr. Longo, the masked, middle-aged man crouched at the end of the bed. “One more giant push, Molly.”

A guttural groan rips out of Molly as she uses every ounce of energy she has to bring her child into the world.

—–

As Jason pushes through the saloon doors at the front of The Wild Lady, he hears a Thomas Rhett song filling the bar. He is relieved to see the place pleasantly full of people — not so much as to feel crowded, but enough to feel like he can get lost in the thick of it all… and maybe forget about the storm raging inside his head and his heart, too.

He crosses the varnished wood floor, maneuvering around a few high-tops and pockets of drinking, laughing patrons, until he reaches the bar. As he is pulling up a stool, he spots Jimmy Trask emerging from the back.

“Jason. Hey,” Jimmy says as he makes his way to the end of the bar where Jason has just seated himself. “What can I get for ya?”

Jason quickly scans the taps behind Jimmy and orders an IPA.

“So what brings ya in tonight?” Jimmy asks, his back to Jason as he fills a chilled pint glass.

“Would you believe that I just felt like supporting a local business?”

“I’ll take the support, that’s for sure. But you don’t strike me as the ‘going out for a drink after work alone’ type.”

When Jimmy turns and sets the amber beer on the bar, he levels a knowing stare at Jason.

Jason offers a rueful grin. “You might be onto something. It’s been one of those days, what can I say?”

“If you feel like talking someone’s ear off, I’ll be back here, so don’t hesitate to give me a wave,” Jimmy says. “And if you have a couple of those, you’re welcome to leave your car out back and get it in the morning.”

“Thanks, Jimmy. I appreciate it.”

Jimmy slings a rag over his shoulder and disappears into the back. As Jason sips his beer, he feels his phone vibrating insistently in his pants pocket. When he pulls it out, he sees his mother’s name on the display. He contemplates what to do for a split-second, then presses a button to stop the vibrating so that the call can ring through to voicemail.

“Sorry, Mom,” he mutters. “Not now.”

He continues to drink and watches a group of women in their 20s crowd around a friend who mounts the mechanical bull, fights its bucking for about three seconds, and then hits the mat beneath it with a solid thwack.

“Wow. She looks like I feel,” a voice says, and its familiarity causes Jason to pivot his head instinctively. There, standing mere feet away from him, is his former fiancée.

“And it looks like you’re having a rough night, too,” Natalie says as she plants herself on the stool right beside Jason.

—–

The world turns into little more than bursts of color and noise for Molly. She has spent the entirety of her pregnancy trying to remember exactly what it was like when she gave birth to the twins… but until now, she couldn’t quite capture it. Now, though, it comes roaring back so vividly that she has no idea how she ever lost hold of it.

She hears her own grunts and cries filling the air. She sees the doctor’s head peeking out from beyond the tops of her knees, and Brent’s face beside her, and the voices urging her on. She feels the tidal wave of exhaustion that crashes over her the moment the baby is out of her body.

Everything remains a haze: the movements of nurse-shaped figures in the room, Brent’s touch on her hand and her arm, her own weary panting.

But there is one thing that never comes to her.

“The baby,” she says to Brent through heavy gasps. “Why isn’t…”

“Why isn’t he crying?” Brent asks. “He? She?”

The next thing Molly knows, the doctor is handing a small blob to a nurse, a blob that Molly knows is the shape of a newborn, even if she can’t make out her own child. The nurse rushes from the room.

“What’s happening?” Molly asks, but before anyone can answer her, the light dims and the colors fade and the sound trails off into nothingness.

END OF EPISODE 1037

Will Molly and her new baby survive?
How will Jason react to Natalie?
Can Sabrina win back Jason’s trust?
Discuss it all in the comments below!

Next Episode