Rehearsals began, and, as usual, things were kind of confusing and confused. No one had signed up to be stage manager, and this was looking like an insurmountable problem, until Linda gave up her spot in the ensemble to take the job.

"Ms. Piper didn't even have to try that hard to convince her," Pepsi teased. "She saw the clipboard and headset and she was sold."

In fact, even though she'd never managed a show before, she was actually a natural. And with Ruthie around to show her the ropes, things soon slid into a groove.

"You remind me of Monica, in the one about Phoebe's wedding," Gordo added, laughing.

"Both of you, shut up," Linda replied, adjusting her headset. "It's not a problem for me to have your mics cut out, you know."

"Don't even joke about the mics," Gordo begged. An alumnus had gifted the drama department a really nice mic set up, with overheads and body packs, and everyone had been instructed to be very careful with them.

"These mics are worth more to me than some of you are,"  Ms. Piper told the class, and she only seemed like she was half-kidding. "Do not fuck them up, are we clear? You treat them the way you treat your most prized possession.

"Now, places for the opening, please, we have to at least get the beginning and end right, right?"

🌻☀️🌷☀️🌹☀️🌸☀️🌺☀️🌼

"It's only a few days away, you know? I think we should iron out the details right now," Ruthie argued.

"That's hardly a detail, is it?" Elliott replied, his voice getting louder.

They were walking home from school. It was the rare sunny day, and Ruthie reveled in the knowledge that the sun was a bit higher in the sky every day, that they gained a few minutes of daylight every week.

"I love your accent," Ruthie said, smiling.

"Stop, Ruthie, you just stop that right now," Elliott admonished. "Compliments about how I sound like James Bond or Prince Harry aren't going to help you, so stop."

"But it's true, you sound so sexy," Ruthie tried. "So what do you say? I think we've waited long enough, and Valentine's Day is a perfect day for us to have sex, don't you think?" She grasped Elliott's arm and hugged herself to him.

He felt her body pressing against him and sighed, pulling his arm out of her grip. "No," he said, putting his hands on his hips for emphasis. "You're fifteen, that's simply too young."

"Elliott, stop being such an old fuddy-duddy," Ruthie said teasingly, putting her hands over his, so she was holding his hips. "And I didn't tell you that I'm on the pill now, so we wouldn't have to use condoms, isn't that great?" She looked at him appealingly, and Elliott had to admit that she looked lovely.

And he'd only gone bareback with a girl two or three times since he'd first had sex, when he was fourteen. The thought of sliding into Ruthie with nothing between them was heady stuff indeed, enough to make him excited if he thought about it too long.

Ruthie turned to go into her house, where they were going to do homework, but Elliott kept walking.

"I need my French book, it has my paper in it," he explained, so she came back and they kept walking.

"Can't we just exchange chocolates or whatever, like normal people?" Elliott begged.

"I want to do that, too," Ruthie assured him, smiling, making her freckles bunch up in the most adorable way.

"Hey, who's at your house?" she asked.

There was a strange car parked right in front of his grandparents' house.

"I don't know, I didn't hear that they were expecting anyone."

"And look, it's not even a local car," Ruthie said, pointing to the rental sticker from the San Francisco airport. "It doesn't belong to anyone who lives in town," she said confidently.

They went inside to see what was up.

Voices were coming from the living room, which was at the front of the house, and usually reserved for serious company. In fact, Elliott had never seen it used since he'd been there.

"Hello?" he called as he and Ruthie entered.

Elliott," his grandmother said, obviously relieved that he'd come. "Oh, and Ruthie, hello, come in, come in, look who's come to visit us."

Ruthie looked curiously at the visitor, but her attention immediately went back to Elliott before she could really look at the young woman.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked bluntly, standing just inside the living room.

And that's when Ruthie saw that there was a car seat sitting next to the woman, and was that a baby in it?

It was.

What in the world?

"Aren't you going to introduce Ruthie, Elliott?" his grandmother admonished.

"No, I'm not," he answered, crossing his arms. "I've nothing to say to her."

"Ruthie, this is Elliott's fathers second wife--er--Sam," his grandfather said, stepping into the breach.

"Hello," Ruthie said politely, nodding.

The young woman gave her a tentative smile. she picked up the baby, maybe just to be doing something.

She was one of the most beautiful women Ruthie had ever seen. She had long black hair that fell in a thick sheaf down her back, and though she was wearing jeans and a plain, gray T-shirt, the dot in the middle of her forehead and her large, green eyes made her look very exotic to Ruthie.

She was holding the baby now, a baby that couldn't have been more than a few months old. He was holding his head up alertly and looking around out of Elliott's hazel eyes. The resemblance was uncanny, though the baby was darker complected, and had black hair, rather than Elliott's pale skin and brown hair.

Elliott turned abruptly to leave, almost knocking Ruthie down in the process. "Come on," he told her. "I''ll grab my book, and we can go back to your house. And maybe I can stay for dinner, too, depending on, um, things."

"Elliott, please sit down and talk to me," the young woman said, and her accent surprised Ruthie, even though she knew who it was, and it shouldn't have.

"Elliott, come on, she flew all this way, what harm in just talking?" his grandfather continued.

Ruthie grabbed his hand and pulled gently. "Come on, he's right," she said. Whatever weirdness was going on about his past, this was a chance to untangle some of it.

Elliott let himself be led to the love seat, where, rather unwillingly, he sat next to Ruthie, though he wouldn't look at the woman.

"I'm Samairah," the woman said to Ruthie, holding out her hand.

Ruthie shook with her.

"And this is Liam," the woman continued, inclining her head toward the baby she held.

At her words, Elliott's head jerked in her direction, though he remained silent.

"He's named after his dad, aren't you, Liam?" she crooned to the baby.

Liam wasn't paying attention to his mother, however. He leaned away from her, toward Ruthie, smiling a toothless grin.

"Oh my goodness, I guess he likes you!" Samairah exclaimed with a laugh. "He never wants to leave me."

"May I?" Ruthie asked, holding her arms out.

The baby was transferred to her and everyone sat, with Liam giving a happy gurgle as he snatched at Ruthie's hair, then tried to grab her nose and put his fingers in her mouth.

"How old is he?" she asked.

"Liam's nearly five months now," Sam told her. "He was born in October."

"We don't care when the little brat was born," Elliott interjected. "So could you stop calling him by my father's name, and just stop talking altogether? No one wants to know."

"Elliott," Ruthie gasped. She'd never heard him talk to anyone like that, not even jokingly. "First of all, I asked, so she answered, and I asked because I wanted to know, so don't presume to speak for me."

She looked at Elliott, eyes full of indignant fire, and he sat back, nodding an apology.

"Fine," he continued. "My apologies. Why did you come then, since you're here?"

"I was concerned about you," Sam answered, blinking her large eyes. Her beautiful eyebrows drew together with concern. "After you left I didn't hear from you for so long--" She trailed off uncertainly, her eyes still on Elliott.

"That was because I didn't want to talk to you, you stupid cow," Elliott interjected.

Oh my god.

Ruthie looked at her boyfriend in surprise even as his grandma spoke for the first time.

"You may not speak to guests in our home that way and remain," she said, her voice made thin by shock.

"Great." Elliott rose, gesturing for Ruthie to hand the baby, who now had a firm grasp of her sleeve, back to his mother. "You heard her, Ruthie, let's go."

"Elliott, sit down, please," Ruthie said firmly. "We're going to sit and talk and be civil, all of us, even you."

Awkwardly, Elliott sat back down, not looking at anyone.

"Like I was saying, I wanted to see with my own eyes that you were well and happy," Samairah said, trying to act like she hadn't just been insulted, twice, by the young man sitting on the love seat.

"And I wanted to find out if you were coming back to England in the fall," she went on. "I know the school won't hold your spot past September, right?"

"You know very well that I can't," Elliott responded, looking at her for the first time. "I haven't the funds, have I? Not since you pulled the plug."

"What?" Now Sam sounded surprised, while Elliott's grandparents sat up straighter, as though they wanted to say something.

Only baby Liam was relaxed and happy, oblivious to everything that was happening around him. His happy sounds filled the tense silence.

"Elliott, I thought you chose not to attend LDAA last fall," she said, leaning forward herself. "Why would you think I'd have anything to do with your decision? I don't control your money."

Elliott stared. "What are you on about? You came grubbing about my dad, wanting what his money could get you, his lifestyle, and you got it, and then he died and you got all of it, and cut me off cold, I get it." His voice had grown bitter as he spoke, and he practically spat out the last three words.

"Elliott might be under a bit of a misconception here," his grandfather interjected smoothly.

Elliott looked at him.

"What?"

"You might have assumed a few things, and we let you, because we thought it would make things easier," his grandmother said, smiling sweetly.

"Elliott, I don't have your money," Sam interrupted. "I don't have any of your father's money, don't you know that? He never changed his will. Under the terms of his old will, your mum got everything, and it was to go to you if anything happened to her. And if you were under twenty-one, the money was to be put in trust, controlled by your guardians until your twenty-first birthday. I didn't get a thing," she finished, her voice and chin beginning to quiver.

Ruthie reached out the hand that wasn't holding the baby to pat Sam's knee, which was the only part of her she could reach. She couldn't help herself. The woman's attempt not to cry was a valiant thing to watch.

Elliott was silent as he digested what he'd heard.

"I'm sure your dad never envisioned that your mum would die like she did, so suddenly," Samairah continued when she was able. "Changing his will was probably the last thing on his mind. And then for him to be taken from us like he was, well, no one thought such a thing would happen, you know?"

"So who's controlling my money?" Elliott asked, and Ruthie was chilled to hear how quickly, how easily, the phrase "my money" rolled off his tongue.

"Well, we do, son," his grandpa said. "Until you're twenty-one. We're your closest blood relatives, it's only right, isn't it?"

"So you had the money for me to go to school last fall?" Elliott asked, disbelief in every syllable.

"Well, yes, but we thought it was more important that you be here with us, with your blood kin, than off at some school all the way over in England," his grandfather explained. "You couldn't be over there, no family, no church, no one to guide you--"

"That's what we're doing here?" Elliott asked. "You're giving me guidance?"

"You should've been brought up in a good Christian home," his grandma said, sitting up even straighter. "And that's what we're providing. God took our daughter from us, but with you here, it's like she's been delivered back into our arms, like god's given us a second chance, so of course we're going to take it, and try to help you in the few years we've been given."

"So you mean that you won't give me the money to go to school?"

His grandparents shook their heads. "You won't touch that money until you're twenty-one," his grandfather declared. "There's no need for you to. You'll have everything you need right here with us. You'll go to church every Sunday, and hear a blessing before every meal.

"And if you want, you can get all the schooling you need within twenty miles of our home," his grandfather continued. "The state school's just down the freeway a piece."

"The state school?" Elliott repeated. "You know how hard it is to get into the school I got into? They accepted twelve students last year, and I was lucky enough to be one of them." Now he was the one who sounded like he was going to cry.

Ruthie shifted the baby so she could hold his hand. His fingers were icy cold.

"Doesn't matter now, does it?" His grandma's voice was cheerful. "It's passed, you're here, and you'll stay with us for three more years--"

"Why didn't you fight the will?" Elliott asked Samairah. "It's England, after all, you could've overturned it, at least gotten custodial support for the baby--"

"I didn't want to put you through anything like that," Sam answered. She took the baby back from Ruthie, as he was starting to fuss, and began to nurse him, after putting a modesty wrap over her lap and front. Even though nothing could be seen, Elliott's grandfather still averted his eyes. "You'd already been through so much, first losing your mum, then Liam dying so suddenly--"

Ruthie couldn't believe the compassion she'd shown Elliott, even to her own detriment. "What have you been living on?" she asked Sam, even though it was none of her business.

"My whole family is England, I've been with them," she answered. "It's not ideal, but they love me, and they love Liam, so we're making it work."

She looked back at Elliott. "I had no idea so much had been kept from you," she said, flicking her eyes to his grandparents and back to her stepson.

"Me either," Elliott said, turning in anger to the two senior citizens in the room. "How could you do this to me? How?"