Previously…
– Jason called off his wedding to Natalie after the revelation that Peter is not his biological child, but Spencer’s.
– Faced with threats that Loretta would reveal their secret alliance, Sonja was forced to read the paternity results aloud at the wedding.
– Tim told Sonja that he was uncertain about a future with her after what happened at his brother’s wedding.

The score to a movie that Natalie Bishop can’t quite place assaults her as soon as she walks into Edge of Winter Arena. She is careful to ease the door closed behind herself, aware that when left to its own devices, it will slam and announce her arrival to everyone present. Out on the ice, she sees a girl with a single long braid running through her program and approaching the corner of the rink, most likely setting up for a double Lutz. Natalie scans the ice surface quickly before spotting the person for whom she is looking.

With only two minutes remaining in the morning’s last freestyle session, Natalie makes her way around the end of the rink so that she will be near where the skaters step off the ice. She is waiting there when Bree Halston skates up to the door and grabs her blade guards from the railing. Bree is stepping off the ice when she notices her mother.

Natalie wastes no more time in approaching.

“Have a good practice?” she asks.

Bree glances around nervously, as if fearful that someone will overhear. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you. You haven’t returned any of my calls or texts. I’ve been worried sick.”

“Dad said he told you that I’m fine.”

“He did,” Natalie admits, “but it isn’t the same.” She can feel the aggression emanating off Bree as the teenager pulls the plastic guards over her blades. “Can we talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Bree says, avoiding eye contact.

“That isn’t true. I owe you a serious apology, for starters.”

That gets Bree’s attention enough so that she meets her mother’s eyes and then walks right past her, only turning back once she is near the skate rental counter. She folds her arms in front of her pink spandex tank top and waits.

Taking the cue, Natalie hurries after her.

“I screwed up,” Natalie says, careful to keep her voice down. Embarrassing Bree is not going to do her any favors right now. “I take full responsibility for that. I got myself into a terrible situation, and I made some bad choices in how I dealt with it.”

“Bad choices?” Bree parrots, jutting her neck forward. “You ruined our lives.”

“I did not–” Natalie stops herself, even though she’d love to defend herself. But that isn’t going to win her any points with Bree. “Our lives aren’t ruined. I know it might feel that way, but it isn’t true. Jason loves you, regardless of what happens between him and me. And Peter is still your brother.”

“What about Sophie? We’ve basically been sisters for the last few years, and now…” Bree stops as she becomes choked up.

“You and Sophie can still have a relationship. No one should blame you for my mistakes. I know Jason won’t.”

Bree stares at the scuffed toes of her white skates. “It isn’t the same. We were a family.”

“I’m sorry, Bree. I am.” Natalie knew that it would be painful to see her daughter in this kind of agony, but she underestimated just how much; she has been telling herself that she would be able to smooth things over as soon as they came face-to-face.

“How could… you and Spencer?” Bree asks quietly.

“It happened the way I explained. Jason had broken up with me, and I didn’t know who Spencer was. We didn’t know until much, much later.”

“And then you…” Bree pauses as another skater, oblivious to the seriousness of their conversation, passes by. “Did you really try to hurt him?”

“No,” Natalie answers sharply. “Absolutely not. His fall was an accident.”

“But you left him there.”

“I…”

She knows that there is no clean excuse for what happened that day. She panicked and left Spencer lying there. She still doesn’t know what might have happened had Sabrina not come over and called for help, and she doesn’t like thinking about it too much because of where the train of thought takes her.

“I can’t change the choices I made back then,” she finally continues, “but I can take responsibility now. Whatever else happens, you and Peter are my priorities. You’re my children, and I love you, and your well-being comes before everything else.”

At last, Bree looks up at her again. Her doll-like blue eyes are filled with sadness and uncertainty.

“If for nothing else, then for Peter’s sake,” Natalie says, “please try and accept my apology. Please don’t cut me out of your life.”

“It’s been forever since I was here,” Claire Fisher says as she follows her ex-husband’s winding path through the rows of cubicles of Vision Publishing. “I bet I could still find my way around, though.”

“There’s plenty that hasn’t changed,” Tim Fisher, leading the way, says over his shoulder. “Sometimes I forget that it’s been so many years.”

He stops at an open door, one with his name embossed on a gray plate on the wall beside it.

“And then some things really have changed,” Claire observes as she steps inside the corner office. “Someone’s moved up in the world.”

Tim smiles and folds his hands together. “I can’t complain on that front.”

Claire walks over to the windows and surveys the King’s Bay streets down below. She nods approvingly at the view.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Tim says as he closes the door.

“I thought it would be good for us to talk and get on the same page. Besides, I don’t want to prod Spencer too much, but I’ve been wondering…”

“I’m not sure if he told you this, but he already found a house.”

“He did?”

“Yeah.” Tim gestures for her to take a seat and moves around the other side of the desk. “It’s only about two miles from my parents’ place, actually.”

As she lowers herself into the chair, she says, “I hope it’s a little more child-friendly than his last house.”

“No kidding. He assures me there’s a railing on the staircase, so that’s an instant upgrade.”

“Small wonders. How is he? Do you have a sense of what he’s thinking? I got the impression that he’s still in shock.”

“There’s definitely a bit of that. But he says he wants to be a father to Peter.”

Claire leans forward, placing her elbows on the desk. “Can you believe that we’re grandparents? That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it. Maybe it’s always weird. But the fact that we didn’t have any build-up or prep time…”

“It’s really weird. Especially since we have this grandson who we’ve met but haven’t ever looked at as ours.”

“I know,” Tim agrees. “I haven’t wanted to push it, but I’m dying to spend time with Peter.”

“Same. Natalie can’t keep him away forever, can she? First of all, Jason has legal rights–”

“He’s on top of that. I think he still isn’t sure how to feel.”

“Poor guy. He’s been through so much.” She shakes her head sadly. “He doesn’t deserve this. I know how much he loves Peter.”

“He’s heartbroken. Even more so over Peter than over Natalie, I think.”

“This all seems so surreal, still. But at least we know the truth now.”

“I shudder to think of what a mess this is going to become,” Tim says. “Spencer thought he had a lawyer lined up, but it turned out someone else at the same firm had already agreed to represent Natalie, so he’s still searching.”

“I’m sure I can find him someone through the hospital.”

“I think he’d really appreciate that.”

“I’d rather we be the ones to help him than Loretta,” Claire says. “I could kill that woman for outing this the way that she did. To do it that publicly — to hurt that many people–”

“That’s Loretta Ragan for you.”

“Even Sonja. Why would Loretta even care about torturing her? She helped Spencer recover.”

Tim fiddles with his tie as he hesitates.

“What?” Claire asks, inching forward again.

“Sonja told me that Loretta approached her a while back,” he says, “or someone did on Loretta’s behalf. She wanted to pay Sonja to relay information about Spencer — and God knows what else — back to her.”

“I assume Sonja said no.”

“She did, but apparently that was enough to put her in Loretta’s crosshairs, too.”

“I bet she didn’t know she was signing up for that when she took the job caring for Spencer.”

“No,” Tim says, “but there’s this part of me that wishes she had told me back when it happened. Maybe it’s irrational, but if we had known, maybe we could’ve headed this off somehow.”

“How?” Claire asks.

“I don’t know. But it’s the kind of thing she should have told me, especially once I opened up to her about everything Loretta and Nick put our family through. I don’t know if I can forgive her for that.”

“Really?”

“It’s illogical, I know. But I’m worried that I’m going to resent her because of what happened at the wedding.” He pauses before adding, “I don’t know if I can move forward with Sonja after all this.”

—–

Despite it only being late morning, Sonja Kahele is already weary as she walks out of the drugstore just outside King’s Bay compact downtown. She has been sleeping horribly ever since the dramatic reveal at Jason and Natalie’s wedding, followed by Tim’s explanation that he needed some time apart. She wishes that she had a new nursing assignment by now so that she might have something to distract her during the days.

She makes it only a few steps past the exit when she sees a familiar figure striding toward her. Spencer Ragan walks with the slightest of limps, but it is remarkable to her how much he has improve since she began overseeing his rehabilitation. For the umpteenth time, she feels a sharp, sudden pang of guilt at the recollection of how she conspired to keep his memory from returning — though that has at least been resolved, with no one being the wiser.

Sonja stops and lifts one hand in a meek wave. Spencer slows as he approaches.

“Hi, Spencer,” she says.

He regards her with dark, impenetrable eyes.

“Hey,” he finally replies.

“I just want to say how sorry I am for what happened at the wedding. I had absolutely no idea what I was reading until, well, I read it. And then it was too late. If I had known…”

“It’s okay,” Spencer jumps in as soon as she pauses to find her next words. “That’s the kind of sick thing my mother has been doing to people for years. Tim told that she tried to hire you.”

“He did?” Sonja gulps. If Spencer were to talk with Loretta, and if she were to reveal the truth about her deal with Sonja…

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t he?”

She squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her head. “I meant, I was expecting you to be upset with me. I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through.”

“It probably isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened to me. And now that this is back–” He taps his head with his index finger. “–I remember everything that happened before I fell. I had just found out Peter’s my kid when I went down those stairs. So now it isn’t as big of a shock.”

“That makes sense,” Sonja says, “or as much sense as any of this could make. I don’t want to keep you, though. I only wanted to let you know how sorry I am.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I know you wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt my dad or me. You’re one of the rare people who’s really just good.”

Sonja feels that agonizing stab of guilt all over again.

“I hope your father is able to see me that way again,” she says.

“He will. I’d bet on it. I think he’s pretty thrown by everything, but when that calms down, so will he.”

She offers him a grateful smile. “Thanks for saying that. I’m glad you’re doing okay, Spencer. And I hope I’ll see you soon.”

“Same,” he says before disappearing into the store.

The inside of Sonja’s head feels like a pinball machine, one thing ramming into another and then flying off in some arbitrary new direction, as she hurries to her car. She is buckling her seatbelt when she hears her cell phone ringing inside her purse.

The area code on the caller ID immediately unsettles her, even though she does not know the number itself. As much as she wants to stuff the phone back into her purse and ignore the call, she knows that will only make things worse. With a shaky hand, she instead answers and lifts the phone to her face.

“Hello?”

—–

Natalie watches her daughter with baited breath. But before Bree can answer, a too-familiar voice cuts through the air. The sound of it makes Natalie’s heart jump.

“Everything okay over here?” Jason Fisher asks as he walks purposefully over the cement floor.

“We’re just talking,” Natalie says. “It’s fine.”

“Is it fine with you, Bree?” he asks.

The teenager hesitates.

“I’m not committing a crime by trying to have a conversation with my daughter,” Natalie says.

Jason stares at her with visible disdain. “The nerve you have, coming here…”

“I knew she’d be finishing up practice. I need to talk with her.”

Bree scans the area around them with discomfort.

“Can we do it some other time?” she asks. “I don’t want anyone else to hear us.”

“Then we can go somewhere quiet,” Natalie says.

“Why don’t you give Bree some space?” Jason says.

Natalie shoots him an irritated look.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Bree says, and she moves quickly for the locker room.

Natalie’s muscles flinch to go after her, but Jason tells her, “Let her go.”

Taking in a deep breath through her nose, Natalie again turns to face him.

“I’m trying to clean up the mess I’ve made,” she says. “I know there are some things I can’t change–”

“And you can’t bully Bree into being ready to forgive you, either.”

“I’m not trying to bully her.”

“You’re trying to make everything go your way — the same as you did with me and with Peter and with Spencer,” Jason says. “You were determined to get the result you wanted, facts be damned.”

“Because I love you,” she says forcefully.

“You don’t love anyone but yourself, Natalie.”

She sets her jaw, shocked all over again that this kind, funny man could now feel so much ire toward her. It’s as if he is a stranger.

“I love my children, and you know that’s the truth,” she says. But he refuses to give her even that much, responding instead with a stony glare.

“When do you want to see Peter?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I… Now. All the time. But then I think that I shouldn’t, because it’s going to be too hard to let go… but if I don’t see him, he’s going to wonder where I went, and–”

“He’s been asking for you nonstop. He misses you. Getting used to this is going to be hard.”

“This shouldn’t even be something he has to get used to!” Jason snaps, as his voice leaps up to a less-than-private volume.

“You’re the one who called off the wedding. You could have married me and been Peter’s father.”

“Except I’m not! I’m not. No amount of pretending or visiting with him is going to change that. Will you get that through your head?”

“Jason–”

He throws up his hands. “I’m done. I’m not debating this with you.”

“Don’t punish Peter for something I did,” she says.

“I’m not. Please, just go.”

Natalie doesn’t budge.

“Natalie–”

“I am so sorry for how I handled things,” she tells him. “I will never stop being sorry for it.”

“Good. Because maybe you’ll finally learn how consequences work.”

Without waiting for her to respond, Jason turns and walks back to the stairs that lead up to his office on the second floor. Natalie lets out a frustrated huff as she balls her fists.

“You aren’t getting rid of me that easily,” she mutters. “Neither of you.”

—–

“You can’t be serious,” Claire says to Tim over the large, black desk. But his expression makes it clear that he isn’t kidding or exaggerating.

Claire sits back in her chair, her voice softening with understanding. “You really don’t think you can trust her.”

“It isn’t that I think I can’t trust her,” Tim says. “It’s that I feel like I can’t. I’m sure it’s irrational, but–”

“But it’s how you feel. I don’t blame you. After everything you were put through by my father, and Nick, and Loretta, it makes sense. They tortured us. You lost years.”

“And then there was Cassandra. I thought I was getting back to normal, moving on, and then she turned out to be lying to me, too. I never would’ve forgiven myself if Samantha and Tempest had gotten seriously hurt because of all that.”

“What Cassandra and her crazy ex did was not your fault,” Claire says, “just like what Loretta pulled at the wedding isn’t Sonja’s fault. We’ve all been manipulated by that maniac.”

“I know,” Tim says with an emphatic nod of his head. “I do. It’s still tough to tell whether I’d be making a mistake by trusting her.”

Claire folds her hands in her lap as she sits up straighter. “Answer one question for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Could you see yourself with Sonja down the road?”

He pauses only long enough to bite his lower lip. “Yes. Or I could, before this–”

“There’s your answer,” she says.

“Indecision?”

“No. The first thought you had when I asked you that was ‘yes.’ The qualifier came after that. You want to be with her.”

He sighs. “I do. I just don’t know if it’s the right decision.”

“When you feel like that about someone, you take that leap of faith,” Claire says. “Sonja has given you no reason to think that she’s anything but trustworthy. Remember that.”

“You’re right.” He sets his palms down flat on the desk. “I’ve put my life on hold for way too long because I’ve been scared of making the wrong choice. But I guess you never know what’s right or wrong until you actually do it.”

“That’s the spirit. Besides, you’re a grandfather now. You might not have that many good years left.”

Tim laughs. “Thanks for the advice, Grandma.”

—–

“Sonja,” the caller says brusquely.

“Mrs. Ragan.” Sonja feels a fresh spike of panic in her gut. “Why are you calling me? How are you calling me?”

“If you think I’m incapable of procuring a cell phone in prison,” Loretta Ragan responds, “then it’s frightening how badly you’ve underestimated me.”

“I didn’t mean–”

“As for the why, it’s because we have some unfinished business.”

Sonja looks out the driver’s side window, at the shoppers going about their perfectly normal days in their perfectly normal lives. She silently curses the day she ever took the call from someone on Loretta’s payroll, offering her a special — and very lucrative — home-care job.

“I did exactly what you asked,” Sonja says. “I read those test results at the wedding. Spencer knows Natalie’s son is his now. You got what you wanted.”

“And now it’s time for you to get what you wanted.”

Sonja’s head spins with confusion. “Mrs. Ragan, all I want is to go back to my life–”

“That’s exactly what you’ll be able to do — as soon as you complete one last assignment.”

“What? You said that was it. You can’t make me do anything else.”

“I suppose not,” Loretta says. “Although you can’t make me refrain from explaining to the authorities how you brainwashed a patient for some extra spending money.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“You really have underestimated me, Sonja. If I were you, I’d think long and hard before refusing to complete your work for me. I’m sure your ill, fragile mother would advise you to do the same.”

Sonja cringes at the thinly veiled threat against her mother.

“What is it?” she asks through gritted teeth. “What’s the assignment?”

She can practically hear Loretta’s grin through the phone. “I knew you’d come around.”

END OF EPISODE 941

What is Loretta going to make Sonja do now?
What did you think of Claire’s advice to Tim?
What is Natalie’s next move going to be?
Discuss this episode and more in the comments below!

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