Written by MichaelMay 18, 2021June 6, 2021

Episode 1078

Previously…
– Jaq received another threatening note in the mail.
– After they hooked up again, Diane decided it was best if she didn’t pursue anything with Isaac.
– Claire was shocked when she went back to Sonja’s home in Hawaii and saw her with a young boy she called TJ, whom Sonja claimed was her nephew.

Claire Fisher watches the majestic, rocky hillsides and dense, lush greenery pass by through the rental car’s passenger window. Despite the beautiful scenery, however, every fiber of Claire’s being is taut with tension and fear. It was bad enough when it seemed as if Sonja Kahele might refuse to open up to her and Tim about Loretta — but now that Claire spotted Sonja with a little boy she was calling TJ, Claire’s nerves are on high alert, as they were all night as she tried to sleep despite her mind being overwhelmed with thoughts.

She looks over at her ex-husband, who is driving the Nissan back toward Sonja’s home. He grips the steering wheel tightly with both hands.

“How are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m okay. I just… want to get there already.” Tim keeps his focus on the road as he speaks.

“I’m really sorry that I went behind your back last night and went back there,” Claire says. “But I really thought I might be able to get Sonja to confide in me.”

Tim draws in a breath through his nostrils and then sighs loudly.

“I’m glad you went back,” he says at last, “or we’d have no idea about this kid. This…” He trails off and shakes his head. “…this kid who could be mine.”

“It seems crazy,” Claire agrees. “This means Sonja must’ve been pregnant when she left King’s Bay. And if she was — why wouldn’t she have told you about the baby?”

“Nothing that woman has done makes any sense to me. Looking back, maybe nothing she did the entire time I knew her made any sense.”

“Well, I hope we can get some answers this morning,” Claire says.

They become quiet as Tim drives the Nissan back into Sonja’s neighborhood. A sense of anticipation — trepidation, perhaps — fills the car.

“Here goes nothing,” Tim says.

“We’ll get her to be honest,” Claire tells him. “We won’t leave until she gives us real answers about TJ.”

The car glides to a stop near the sidewalk. Both their gazes fix upon the front of the house as they step out of the vehicle.

“That’s weird,” Tim comments.

Claire nods as she looks at the house, where the garage door stands open, with no sign of Sonja’s car inside it or anywhere nearby.

—–

In downtown King’s Bay, Diane Bishop walks down the street with a shopping bag hanging from her forearm as she uses her hand to dig through her purse. Just as she finds her keys and is pulling them out, she hears a voice call out, and it brings her to a dead stop.

“Whoa! Look out,” the man says, and she startles as she looks up to see Isaac Banks standing there, mere inches away.

Diane stares at him, their eyes locked.

Finally she manages to mutter, “Sorry.”

Still, she can’t quite bring herself to move, and Isaac’s attention is fixed on her, too. Diane takes note of the dark stubble along his jawline; it looks even more defined than she recalls, if that’s even possible.

“How are you?” she asks.

Isaac shakes his head. “We don’t have to do this.”

“What? Be nice?”

“Actually — yeah.”

“Well, excuse me for being polite,” Diane snaps.

“I’m just saying,” Isaac replies. “I tried, Diane. I came here to find you. I told you I was into you. I tried texting and calling after we– you know.”

Diane gets a hot rush recalling their tryst in the parking garage outside KBAY.

“But you’ve made it more than clear that you’re not interested,” he says, “so might as well keep moving, right?”

“Isaac–“

“Don’t bother.” He holds up a palm to quiet her. “If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have come here, and I wouldn’t have found my sister. So it all worked out. We’re good. Take care, Diane.”

He begins to move past her. Diane knows that she should do the same. But there is a gravitational pull to him that she can’t resist, and she finds herself turning toward him.

“Isaac,” she says. “Wait.”

—–

Travis Fisher places two steaming cups of coffee on the dining table in the small eat-in area of the apartment that he shares with Rosie Jimenez.

“Thanks,” Samantha Fisher tells her brother. She sits at the table with her partner, Jaq Pearson. “Sorry to bother you and Rosie on your day off.”

“You aren’t bothering us,” Travis says as he joins them at the table. “This is some scary shit–” He stops himself and looks to Jaq. “Sorry. I don’t wanna freak you out.”

“It’s okay,” Jaq says as they brush their black bangs out of their eyes. “I have to admit… I freaked out a little, too, when I found that letter last night.”

“And you’re the one who didn’t want to get the police involved last time,” Samantha says.

Jaq frowns and picks up their coffee. “I guess I didn’t want to believe it was serious. But when I got this new letter…”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Travis says as reassuringly as he can. “Rosie has it down at the station now. They’ll check for prints and everything.”

Samantha sighs with frustration. “But they couldn’t find anything with the first one. No offense to Rosie.”

Bowing his head deferentially, Travis tells her, “None taken. I know she can’t perform a miracle–”

“But maybe whoever left it slipped up this time,” Jaq says with a note of hope.

“Maybe,” Samantha agrees before taking a sip of her own coffee.

“Regardless, I’m glad you brought her that letter,” Travis says. “I hate the idea that whoever is doing this might be coming right up to the house to put them in the mailbox themselves.”

“Me, too,” Jaq says, their voice wavering slightly.

Samantha sets down her coffee cup so that she can reach over and take Jaq’s hand.

“Nothing bad is going to happen to you,” Samantha says.

Travis leans back in his chair and picks up the nearby baby monitor. Samantha notes the way that he checks it with great care, as he watches Gabrielle sleeping in the other room.

“It’s good that you aren’t living alone, at least,” he says as he places the monitor back on the table.

“Having Finn there does make me a little more comfortable,” Jaq says.

“You could always come stay at my dad’s,” Samantha offers, with a squeeze of Jaq’s hand. “He wouldn’t mind.”

Travis claps his hands on the table. “Okay, did he or my mom tell you anything about what they’re doing? Why are they in Hawaii?”

Samantha uses a finger to push up her glasses. “Nothing. Do you think they’re getting back together?”

Travis scrunches up his face. “I don’t think so? Maybe?”

Now Jaq leans in, planting their elbows on the edge of the table. “Do you think they would get back together?”

Samantha and Travis exchange a perplexed look.

“I have no idea,” Travis says. “But it sounded more… urgent or something.”

Nodding in agreement, Samantha adds, “That’s how Dad made it sound. Like work.”

“Your family fascinates me,” Jaq says with widened eyes. “You’re all so…”

“Confusing?” Sam replies with a laugh.

“Complicated. In a cool way.” Jaq picks up their coffee again. “My parents have always been so distant. It’s like we’re all coworkers or something. But your family…”

“We’ve all been through some crazy shit,” Travis says. “Maybe it makes everyone a little more chill. Which is why our dad would 100% not mind if you stayed there for a while.”

Jaq looks back at him with wonder. “You think?”

Travis nods. “Not at all.”

“Or,” Jaq says, drawing in a quick gasp of air, “you could come stay at our place, Sam.”

After a moment’s consideration, Samantha says, “That would be a little less awkward.”

“Right,” Jaq declares. “I’d feel a lot safer having you there at night.”

Travis shrugs. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Sam says, “and of course I wouldn’t mind spending more time with you.”

Jaq quickly leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you,” they say. “And it’s a good test run for the future, right?”

“Trust me. It is,” Travis says, sitting back in his chair as Jaq and his sister kiss again.

—–

Tim goes to Sonja’s front door and presses the doorbell. Although he hears its muffled chime through the door, he is equally conscious of the silence that precedes and follows it; there is a stillness to the house that tells him it is empty.

Claire, who has been lingering in the driveway, moves into the open garage. Along one wall, a shelving unit is crammed full of odds and ends: baby items, Christmas decorations, gardening tools, and a messily rolled-up green hose. Unsure what she is even looking for, she tries a door, hoping that it connects to the house, but instead finds that it simply leads back outside, where trash bins are sitting.

She returns to the driveway, where Tim is staring at the house in confusion.

“Nothing?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“No one’s home,” he says, “or they’re being very quiet.”

“When I was here yesterday,” Claire says, “Sonja had to get out and close the garage door manually after she pulled the car out.”

They stand there, taking in the implications of that — that Sonja has been back since Claire saw her leave with TJ, and that whenever she left again, she didn’t even bother to close the garage door.

Claire sees a neighbor, an older Hawaiian man with a mustache like a silver push-broom, in the next driveway over. The man is pulling a large, green trash bin to the curb.

“Excuse me,” Claire calls out. “Is it trash day?”

“Sure is,” the man says, his brow furrowing with suspicion.

Claire glances at Tim, who looks just as perplexed.

“The trash bins are behind the garage,” she says.

“So Sonja didn’t even put them out,” Tim finishes.

“Have you seen the lady who lives here? Sonja? Or her little boy?” Claire asks the man, who is once again noisily bringing the trash receptacle to the end of the driveway.

He stops and stares at them, and then at the house, for several seconds.

“Saw her leave in a big rush last night,” he finally says. “She had the boy with her.”

“Do you know Sonja well?” Tim asks. “Do you have any way of reaching her?”

The man shakes his head. “Only talked to her like this a few times. The way I’m talkin’ to you now. Don’t have her number or nothing.”

Claire feels her own shoulders sag in defeat.

“Thank you,” she tells the neighbor, who shrugs and heads back to his own home.

“She left,” Tim says. “All because we found her.”

Claire moves closer toward him. “I am so sorry. If I hadn’t come back–“

“It’s not your fault. If you hadn’t come back, we wouldn’t know about– about TJ at all.” He stops, as if needing to digest the thought and the name. “She didn’t want to be found, and she didn’t want us to know about TJ.”

“She wouldn’t flee with a nephew,” Claire adds.

“Exactly,” Tim says. “But now the question is: where is she taking that kid? And how do we find them?”

—–

When Isaac turns back toward her, Diane is suddenly unable to figure out what to say or do. He stares back at her, as the pleasant springtime air surrounds them and people walk up and down the sidewalk, going about their lives.

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” she manages to say, “or that I regret what we’ve– what’s happened between us.”

“But?” His eyebrows rise. “There’s gotta be a but coming.”

“There is. But it warrants a real conversation. In private.” She feels a painful twisting sensation in her gut at the mere prospect of being honest with him about her past.

It’s the only way, she thinks, though that does little to dissolve the fear.

“I’m standing here now,” Isaac says. She has never seen this side of him before, so cool, trying so hard to be detached. “You don’t strike me as someone who has trouble with her words, Diane.”

“I’m not. It’s just–“

She stops mid-sentence when she sees Tempest Banks emerge from the store. Tempest’s glare hardens once it catches sight of Diane.

Diane’s emotions whirl even more forcefully. Whatever feelings she has for Isaac are swept up in the tornado of regret and resentment that surrounds her history with his sister.

“It doesn’t matter,” Diane says quickly. “I need to go.”

She moves past them and hurries down the street, thankful that she didn’t go any further in exposing her past mistakes to Isaac. None of it would make a difference, anyway. His connection to Tempest means that nothing — nothing else, nothing of substance — can ever happen between them, anyway.

“What’d she want?” Tempest asks her brother.

“I…” Isaac watches Diane disappear down the street and around a corner. “I just bumped into her. I have no idea.”

“Better that way,” Tempest comments. “Be grateful she’s just some random lady you met on a cruise.”

Isaac sighs but keeps his response to himself: I guess that really is all she’ll ever be.

END OF EPISODE 1078

Should Diane be fully honest with Isaac?
What should Tim and Claire do next?
Is Jaq’s safety truly in jeopardy?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

Next Episode