Chapter 1 – The First Meeting
Late February 1997
Marlena
I stood outside the fish market, ruffling through my bag looking for my gloves in frustration. Sami didn’t want to come home, and I understood why. Her fights with Roman were escalating again, and I was too exhausted to keep the peace between them. I’d spent years trying to tame the fights and animosity between Roman and Carrie. I’d been doing it for so long that I lost myself in the process.
When Roman first came home the twins were seven and Carrie was thirteen. We’d been on our own for seven years. Seven years where the whole Brady family presumed that Roman was dead, and I took on the roles of both mother and father. Shawn and Caroline helped out as much as they could, but they were getting older and running their own business. Bo and Hope had helped when they could, but Hope was gone now and Bo might never be the same again. Kimberly and Kayla had helped out when they were in Salem, but they had their own lives to live.
Then Roman burst back into our lives and at first everything was wonderful. The children had their father, I had my husband, and Roman was so sweet and caring. He told me that thinking of us had kept him alive and given him hope, but within the first year he was back to working 60 hour weeks, and taking covert ISA missions where he was gone for weeks at a time. I was a single mother again, only this time I felt like I had an additional person to take care of. When Roman was around he threw his laundry on the bathroom floor, he spit on the sink and the mirror in the bathroom, and he left dishes in the sink. He was worse than the children. If I mentioned it, he would argue with me, telling me that I was overreacting. I wasn’t overreacting, I was overworked.
Then there was the parenting. Roman was a stricter parent than I was. He had been less inclined to trust Carrie’s choices and he questioned everything she did, even her whereabouts when she had told us where she was. They fought almost constantly, until three years ago when Carrie decided to go live with her mother in Paris. It broke my heart to lose her, but I understood why she’d done it. Roman drove her away, although he’d never admit it. In his mind Carrie left because Anna let her get away with everything, and Carrie hated rules. He blamed me for that. I knew it wasn’t true. Carrie called me nearly every day. She was lonely in Paris, but not lonely enough to come home.
Pulling one of my gloves on, I fumbled with the other. Hopefully after a weekend with her grandparents, Sami would come home and we could try again. Caroline was worried, and rightly so. Sami was threatening to move to Colorado to live with my parents, and if she went, Eric would follow. There would be nothing I could do to stop them. I would just have to speak with Roman again, but after six years of speaking to Roman, I didn’t hold out much hope. I was miserable, absolutely miserable. How many times had I considered divorce? Too many, only to be stopped by the overwhelming guilt I carried with me. We’d lived our lives for seven years, and all the while Roman had suffered at the hands of Stefano DiMera. How could I divorce him after what he’d been through?
I wiped the tears of frustration from my cheeks as a stiff breeze blew my wayward blonde hair around my face. A sudden noise behind me caused me to turn, but I was quickly grabbed with my arm twisted behind my back. Flashes of my rape twenty years earlier and an attack I lived through nearly eleven years before flashed through my mind. PTSD. I knew what it was. That didn’t stop the flashbacks.
Sour breath wafted over my cheek, and I felt the steel of a blade against my neck. Someone with a rough voice said, “You look like a pretty lady with a lot of money. Give me the wallet, and I’ll be gone before you turn around.”
I dropped my purse on the ground beside me. I wasn’t going to escalate the situation. I certainly wasn’t going to fight back. I whispered, “Take it. Take it.”
The man laughed, digging the knife deeper into my soft skin. I could feel the drip of warm blood. He’d cut me.
“Do you always give in that easily?” He pulled me around the side of the building, “Maybe I should be demanding a little more than money?”
The flashbacks kept coming as my heart raced. I needed to stay in the moment, but that was hard to do when images of my rape by Kellam Chandler flashed in my mind. That was when the panic started. My voice pitched higher, “No! No! Please, just take the wallet. There’s cash in there.”
John
I stepped off of the pier and followed the stone path up the hill towards the small fish market I’d seen earlier. There had been a sign in the window advertising clam and fish chowder, and given the brisk wind and the low temperature it sounded like the perfect dinner after my long walk. Salem was a quaint little town. Victor was right. It would be a chance to start my life over. Losing Isabella and my son in a car accident that I blamed myself for had taken me months of therapy to deal with. I was only now ready to look forward.
Victor’s job offer had been unexpected, but then he was my father-in-law. I guess we were family, although I didn’t fully trust him. I knew his history well enough to know that people didn’t cross him, but I was also well aware of how strongly he felt about family. That was why he stayed in Salem. His son lived there with his grandson, although Isabella had told me that Bo kept his distance. I think Victor still held out some hope that maybe he and Bo would become closer.
As I rounded the corner I was hit by another gust of wind carrying with it the scent of lilacs and a sharp feminine cry. I looked overhead thinking at first it might be a seagull, but then out of the corner of my eye I saw a quick slice of color as someone pushed another person around the corner and into an alley. My first thought was that it really wasn’t my business, but then I heard a female voice cry, “No! No! Please, just take the wallet. There’s cash in there.”
“Shit,” I muttered. I wasn’t in the mood to play hero, but I wasn’t going to allow a woman to be mugged either. I ran towards the alley noticing that there was no one else outside. It was me, or no one. I saw the purse on the ground as I got closer, thinking it was a simple robbery, until I heard a man’s voice say, “Oh, yeah. You are a pretty one.”
I didn’t think, I acted. Wrenching my fist in the back of the man’s coat, I jerked him away from the woman he had pinned against the wall. “You wanna tell me what the fuck you think your doing?”
He stared up at me in surprise, swinging at me but unable to get a good hit. I shoved his face against the brick of the building, grinding it in a bit while feeling a sense of satisfaction just knowing what it was going to do to his face. Leaning closer, I growled, “Sounded to me like you were trying to take liberties with a woman who wasn’t exactly inclined to reciprocate. Where I come from that’s sexual assault. What would you call that?”
“I was just joking around,” he muttered.
“I don’t think the lady found it funny,” I replied, pulling him back, and shoving him against the wall again.
I could smell blood, and I was about to beat the shit out of him when I heard a small, feminine voice cry out. “Stop! Please, stop!”
It was the first time I’d looked at her. Honey blonde hair and hazel eyes. It was the first time I’d felt anything real in almost a year. I froze, lost for a moment in time with a woman who was a complete stranger. Eyes full of green and brown, pain and sadness. I could only imagine what she saw in mine.
“He was hurting you,” I told her.
“I–I know him. From the community center. Laura Horton, my friend Laura works with his son,” she said softly. I think she realized that she sounded rather timid, because she cleared her throat and straightened herself slightly. “You can let him go.”
Disgusted with him, I let go quickly, and he almost fell to the ground. He scurried off like a fucking rat in the other direction, while she and I stood there staring at each other for a moment in silence.
“Thank you,” she whispered. I heard the tremble in her voice. She was still scared, but she had strength in her. I could sense it. I watched her intently as she brushed dust off of her jacket, and then finally looked at me again, holding her gloved hand out. “Dr. Marlena Brady.”
I reached for it, noting how small it felt in mine, as I replied, “John Black.”
Victor
John entered the house much later than I’d expected and met me with a wry smile. “I ran into some trouble down by the fish market,” he told me with a shrug. “My bags are in the car.”
“The fish market?” I repeated. “What happened?”
“Some punk tried to mug a shrink,” he said. “Hey, look, I want you to know that as soon as I find my own place, I won’t need to stay here. I do appreciate you offering me a room though. It sure beats a hotel.”
I was stuck on what he’d said when he first arrived. A shrink outside the fish market? “Was it Marlena Brady?”
He seemed slightly surprised and met me with his intense blue eyes. “Yeah. I’d been walking down by the pier. I don’t know if I told you, but I’ve always been drawn to water. Anyway, I decided to head up that way because I’d seen a sign in the window earlier for the best chowder in Salem–”
I couldn’t help smiling slightly. “ –Caroline Brady makes excellent chowder.”
John’s eyebrows raised, “Ah, so you know her?”
“She’s Bo’s mother,” I said. I didn’t add anything. John knew enough of the story from Isabella. “So, someone tried to mug Marlena and you stopped it?”
“I did, and I had some pleasant conversation while I ate the best chowder in Salem,” he said with a grin.
I was surprised. John hadn’t shown much enthusiasm for anything over the last year. Losing Isabella and Wyatt in the car accident had nearly destroyed him. He’d been driving when a tractor trailer driver fell asleep and crossed the median hitting them head on. The car had rolled several times. All three of them had been taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital, but Wyatt was dead on arrival, and Isabella died within hours of hearing they’d lost him. John was hospitalized for nearly two months following that, and then in a rehabilitation hospital for another three months learning how to walk again.
John
I saw the way Victor was watching me, and I didn’t want to elaborate. That’s all it had been. Good chowder and pleasant conversation. Nothing more. Marlena was married, and Caroline Brady was her mother-in-law. Was I intrigued by those hazel eyes and her soft laugh? I was, and I hadn’t felt intrigued by anyone in a long time, but it meant nothing. She was kind, intelligent, and she had a sense of humor. I’d always been attracted to intelligent women, at least what I could remember of my life.
“So, which room is mine?” I asked. “I can run back out to the Jeep and grab my bags.”
“No. I’ll have Mason get them for you, and bring them up. It’s the third bedroom on the right on the north side. It overlooks the garden,” Victor said.
Sadness swept through me sharp and brief. Perhaps it always would. I smiled at him, “Isabella always loved that room.”
Marlena
I stood outside of the house taking deep breaths. Roman was going to be angry, but he also had a shift starting soon, so it would be temporary. I didn’t have Sami with me, and the fact that I’d allowed her to stay at the fish market with his parents would make him feel justified in his anger. He was telling me more often than not that I allowed the twins to run over me at every turn. I didn’t, but I parented gentler than he did. I didn’t think parenting was a dictatorship. Sami had gotten angry at Roman because of how unbending he was, and she’d gone to her grandparents. Roman had demanded I bring our insolent child home. I didn’t. So, as I turned my key in the lock and opened the front door, I knew what was coming.
His eyes met mine, and he sneered. “What did I tell ya, Doc? You let her stay? What are we teaching her? If every time she gets angry at me she runs off to Ma and Pop, what are we teaching her?”
I unfasted my coat and hung it in the closet. “Roman, she just needs time to cool down. That’s all.”
“If I had time, I would drive over there and drag her ass home. Where she should be.” He stared at me for a moment and then asked, “What took you so long anyway?”
“I was leaving to come home, and someone tried to mug me outside the fish market. A stranger intervened and stopped it, but it shook me up. So, I sat with Caroline for a while before I drove home.” I didn’t mention that the man who saved me had been there as well. I didn’t mention his jet black hair or striking blue eyes. None of that was anything I should notice to begin with.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Look, I gotta head out, but we’re going to need to get on the same page with Sami and Eric. We have to be a united front, Doc. I can’t have you undermining me at every single turn,” he said.
I watched him, seething inside. I was dying slowly inside, and he didn’t even see it. I didn’t even have the energy to fight back. Just as he opened the door to leave, I asked him, “Were you able to clear your schedule for Wednesdays and Saturdays starting next month?”
“Yeah, that’s not going to work out, Doc, but don’t worry. I already explained it to Eric, and he’s okay with it. He wasn’t even upset,” he said carelessly. “I’ll be back late. Hopefully I see you before you leave in the morning.”
The front door closed, and I shut my eyes for a moment. The house was quiet, but I knew somewhere in its depths my son was emotionally destroyed. Roman had been promising him for months that he would coach Eric’s baseball team. Without Roman to coach, they might not have a season.
I turned towards the stairs, ascending slowly as I headed towards Eric’s bedroom. I knew what I was about to face, and I silently cursed Roman for leaving it to me. Knocking softly, I cracked the door, whispering, “Hey. It’s me.”
Pushing it wider, my heart broke at what I saw. My son sat in the middle of the floor with swollen red-rimmed eyes. He didn’t have to say anything. We both knew that Roman Brady had let him down again.
The Jarlena Journal 