Previously…
– Diane hired Sarah to investigate Therese, the mystery woman whom Henry Bishop spoke of while on his deathbed.
– After Jason punched Spencer, the judge tossed out Jason’s appeal, effectively ending his chances of winning custody of Peter.
– Molly and Brent impulsively has sex, but the next morning, he told her that he also loves Claire.

Brent Taylor sits behind the desk in his office inside the King’s Bay Police Department, his face buried in a pile of paperwork through which he has been trying to dig his way for hours. In spite of how long he has been police commissioner, the office remains starkly outfitted; there are a few photos of his twin sons from throughout the years, but aside from those and his various accreditations, he has never felt compelled to surround himself with many personal effects at work. He can hear the rain pattering against the windows as he turns pages, eager to get sign off on as many items as he can before more pressing business inevitably distracts him.

When he does he hear footsteps approaching and then the clearing of a throat at his door, however, it is not another officer that he finds, but his ex-wife, in a wide-collar navy wrap coat. He isn’t certain which emotion hits him first: the uncomfortable tensing of all his muscles or the fluttering sensation in his stomach.

“Sorry for dropping in unannounced,” Molly Taylor says with a smile that looks to Brent as if it takes some amount of bravery.

“It’s okay.” Brent closes the file folder that sits before him. “What’s up?”

“I was hoping we could talk.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” She closes the door, the same way she did a million times back when they were married, but all these years after their divorce, something about the action seems a lot more significant.

Well, Brent realizes, things also aren’t as cut-and-dry as they were for most of the time since we’ve been divorced. 

“Is it about the boys?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

“You’ve barely responded to any of my texts, Brent. And I thought better than to put this in writing…”

“I appreciate that,” he says, though his stomach flip-flops nervously at what this might be. “And I’m sorry. To tell the truth… I haven’t been sure what to say.” 

Molly comes closer to his desk. “I understand that. I do. But that night we shared… it won’t just go away if we pretend it didn’t happen.”

“It kind of can.”

She looks stung, and it takes a moment for her to formulate her next statement.

“You haven’t proposed to Claire yet,” she says. “You said you had the ring, that you were going to, but you’ve had time, and…”

“I know. I feel really guilty about what happened between us.”

“We made love, Brent. And it meant something. I could feel it.”

His gaze falls to the front of the manila folder in front of him. “I didn’t say that it didn’t.”

“But you’re barely engaging with me,” Molly says, “and you haven’t gotten engaged to Claire yet, either. So what’s going on? What are you trying to figure out?”

—–

Natalie Bishop shivers against the late afternoon chill as she turns her key in the front door’s lock. She quickly moves inside and sets down her multitude of shopping bags on the hardwood floor of the foyer.

“Spencer?” she calls out, already surprised at having seen his Porsche in the driveway.

“In the kitchen,” he responds immediately. Something about it strikes her as strange — even in completely benign situations, he tends to address her with a tinge of resentment, as if making any conversation that isn’t about Peter requires an intense amount of energy.

“Why are you home already?” she asks as she walks the short distance to the kitchen.

“I wanted to talk with you.” He is still dressed in his crisp white dress shirt and navy slacks from the workday, but what really catches Natalie’s attention is the bouquet of red roses in his arms.

She stops in her tracks and draws her neck back as she studies the scene. “What are you up to?”

“I’m not up to anything. These are for you.”

Spencer holds out the roses. Natalie contemplates them with confusion and a very healthy dose of discomfort.

“They’re beautiful,” she says as she snatches them from him. “Thank you. Now what do you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” he says, turning toward the marble-topped island and then swiveling back with two glasses of champagne. “That’s the point.”

“Huh?” Natalie eyes the champagne even more dubiously than she did the roses.

“More accurately, I want exactly what you want,” Spencer says. “To raise our son. For him to be happy. And to get on with our lives. So let’s toast.”

He forces the glass of bubbly into her reluctant hand.

“What the hell are we toasting to?” Natalie asks. “Being in a marriage of convenience?”

“Sure,” he says with a one-shouldered shrug. “Or the opposite. My dear wife… I think the time has come for us to end this sham of a marriage once and for all.”

—–

Piles of melting snow line the streets, while what is left in the streets has been turned into a grayish-brown mush. Diane Bishop steps carefully over the wet, slushy ground, watching for stray patches of ice — especially when she reaches the front yard of the ranch-style house. It looks the same as it did on Google Maps, aside from its oatmeal-colored siding being a little more faded and weather-beaten. Diane draws a deep breath and then starts up the poorly shoveled walkway.

She can hardly believe that she is here, both in Columbus, Ohio, and at this house. She spent several weeks contemplating this trip, debating whether to share her plan with anyone at all, questioning whether she would be insane to come here. But after discussing it with Sarah — perhaps the only person who can understand why this is so important, even if Diane cannot totally articulate it herself — she decided that she had to do it. There is nothing to lose, per se…

After another long breath of cold air sucked in through her nostrils, Diane uses the freezing index finger of her right hand to ring the doorbell.

A moment passes. Then another. Finally she hears faint noise from within the house. There is a tenseness to it, as if the person on the other side of the door doesn’t want the visitor to know that she is being evaluated. Just as Diane is clearing her throat to call through the door, she hears the metallic shuffling of locks.

The door creaks open to reveal an older woman with short, red hair whose color seems to be enhanced by dye. She wears a thick, cable-knit sweater over tights and peers at Diane over her wire-rimmed glasses.

“Can I help you?” she asks, in a tone that strongly suggests she’d prefer not to.

“Hi, my name is Diane. I’m looking for–” She stops and studies the woman. “Are you Therese DeLuca?”

The woman’s eyes narrow. “Therese was my sister.”

“Was.” Diane sucks in a hit of the cold winter air. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Therese died last year. Just before Christmas. You didn’t know that?”

“No, I…” It takes another moment for Diane to compose herself; she had hoped to find Therese herself and certainly didn’t expect to hear that she’d passed. “My name is Diane Bishop. Therese worked for my grandfather, Dick, back in the ‘60s–”

“Dick Bishop?” The other woman’s until-now-inscrutable expression turns fiery. “You need to get off my property right now.”

—–

Molly’s questions hang in the air for several seconds, although they pass at an unbearably slow rate. Brent looks back up at her, wondering if there’s some way they can resolve this without having to say everything aloud so plainly.

“I’m trying to figure out what I should do,” he admits at last.

He watches Molly swallow the lump in her throat.

“You should follow your heart,” she says. “If nothing else, I’ve learned that much after all my years of staggering around without having a clue what I’m doing.”

“You should give yourself more credit than that.”

She lifts both eyebrows. “I’m not sure that I should.”

The office falls into near silence again. The inconsistent rhythm of the raindrops against the windows provides an uneasy soundtrack as they each try to figure out what to say next. Just as Molly opens her mouth to speak, Brent spits out his next thought:

“I do love Claire,” he says. “And until that night, I was sure I was going to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her. You were with Conrad.”

“Were you only with Claire because I was with someone else?”

“No!” He claps his hands on the desk pushes his chair backward for emphasis. “Come on, Molly.”

“I had to ask.”

“I’m with Claire because we fell in love — while you were running around with Philip, by the way.”

“Don’t forget that it was you running around with Claire that put our marriage in jeopardy in the first place,” she fires back. “The two of you were obsessed with bringing down Loretta Ragan.”

“Because she was a danger to our entire family!” He shakes his head vigorously. “I’m not getting into this again. I think we’re both very clear on why we split up.”

“And I guess that means you think it would be stupid to give it another try?”

He hates that it takes him more than a split-second to muster an answer.

“I’m with Claire,” he says. “And I’m sorry if we– if I–”

“Save it,” Molly says, turning on her heels. “Message received, even more clearly than your lack of response these past few weeks.” 

“Mol,” he says, but she is already pulling the door open and retreating from the office. He can hear the clacking of her heels as she disappears down the hallway.

“Dammit,” he mutters as he drops his head into his hands.

—–

Natalie stares back at Spencer in shock, her champagne flute frozen in mid-air. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“We did it,” Spencer declares, clinking his glass against hers. “We won custody. That’s why we got married in the first place.”

While he sips the champagne, Natalie hesitates.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Jason is like a dog with a bone with this whole drugging thing.”

“Jason punched me out in front of a bunch of people, including your teenage daughter. The judge tossed out his appeal. We’re good.”

“Still…”

Spencer’s eyes flare. “Oh god. Please don’t tell me that you think you’re in love with me.”

“Ew! No!” She gives him a shove and then moves past him. “I don’t know if we should rush to dissolve the marriage, that’s all. Won’t that look suspicious to the court?”

“What are they going to do about it? Couples get divorced all the time without losing custody of their children to people who aren’t the parents.”

Stressed, Natalie finally takes a drink of the champagne.

“Besides, I’m tired of living like a monk,” Spencer says.

“I don’t have you locked up in some chastity belt,” Natalie replies. “I told you that you can go do whatever — or whoever — you want, as long as it didn’t impact the custody case.”

“I know that. But it’s a lot harder in execution than it is in theory, especially when you have a job and a kid and everything.” He eyes her for several seconds. “I’m not saying we have to do it right this second. But it’s time that we started the process of bringing this to an end.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good. That’s all I’m asking.” He finishes his champagne and sets down the flute. “I’m going to hit the gym before dinner.”

“Go for it,” Natalie says, leaning her elbows on the island. She listens to him rush upstairs and downs the rest of her own champagne as she tries to envision what her life might look like once this arrangement is over.

—–

Diane’s adrenaline spikes as she sees her opening.

“You knew my grandfather?” she asks.

“No. Never met the bastard,” the woman in the sweater says from her doorway. “But after what your granddad did to my sister–”

“What did he do to her?” Diane pleads. “My father — Henry — he kept saying Therese’s name while he was dying. He was in and out of consciousness and thought I was her.” 

The woman shakes her head insistently.

“Lady, your family caused my sister enough misery,” the other woman says. “So whatever you want–”

“I don’t want anything except to talk.”

Diane stands there in the cold, her feet planted firmly and her gaze even firmer.

“What did my grandfather do to Therese?” she asks. “I just want to know. If there’s something that I can help make right… please, let me.”

Her plea floats between the puffs of white breath coming out of both of their mouths.

“You said you’re Henry’s daughter?” the woman finally asks.

Diane dips her head in a nod. “He died earlier this year. And when I asked my mother who ‘Therese’ was, she got very secretive. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more to all this. Please, if you can help at all…”

The woman regards her for another few seconds before abruptly turning away. She pulls open the top drawer of a nearby credenza and then shoves something small and silver into Diane’s hand.

“Show this to your mom,” she says gruffly.

Diane looks down at the item. It is an old, worn, silver locket on a flimsy chain. The item itself is shaped like a heart, but when she pops it open, there is no photo inside.

“What is this?” Diane asks. “My mother will recognize it?”

“Tell her Cindy DeLuca gave it to you.”

“Cindy. That’s you?”

“Yeah. That’s all I can tell you. I’m sorry,” Cindy says before closing the door. Diane begins to protest, but the only response she receives is the clicking of locks from inside.

Her cheeks and ears sting from the cold as she looks down at the locket in her hand.

“What the hell is going on?” she mutters as she closes her hand around the piece of jewelry and begins walking back to her rental car.

—–

Molly rushes out of the station. Using her hand to shield her head from the rain, she scrambles back into her car, where she finally lets out a loud, anguished exhale.

The leather seat feels cold beneath her, but she is suddenly too exhausted even to start the engine and turn on the heat. She simply sits there, staring through her windshield at the falling rain, as the abject failure of her visit to Brent washes over her again and again.

I wanted to tell him, she thinks, as her hand drifts down to her coat-covered stomach. I wanted to. But not like that. I couldn’t. 

With her heart aching, she starts the car and listens to its gentle roar. But even as heat fills the car, she doesn’t feel even a tiny bit better.

END OF EPISODE 998

What should Molly do about Brent now?
Is Diane close to the truth about Therese?
Should Spencer and Natalie end their marriage?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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