Ruthie caught up with Elliott on the sidewalk in front of his house, reaching out to snag the back of his hoodie as he quickly strode away.

"Elliott, stop, please! Sam is following you, and she's carrying the baby, please!" she implored.

Her words got him to stop, and he turned around.

Samairah had almost caught up to him, holding little Liam, who was staring around at the sudden change in scenery. Elliot's grandparents stood framed in the doorway of their house, looking concerned.

"Elliott, please come back, so we can talk?" His grandma's voice sounded frail and old, which, Ruthie reflected, she was, bus trips and bingo nights aside.

"I can't right now, I really can't," Elliott said, raising his voice so they'd hear him. "I'm going to Ruthie's for a while."

They nodded, went inside and closed the door, leaving the three of them and baby Liam standing out in the damp, February day.

"Let's all go to my house," Ruthie said, sending her Pop a quick text. "We can regroup and calm down a little, okay?"

Sam nodded, and so, after a few heartbeats, did Elliott.

"Let's take my car, okay?" Sam suggested. "I'd rather not leave it here."

Ruthie nodded and ran in to get the car seat from the living room. When she returned with it, however, Elliott was gone.

"He said he wanted to walk," Sam told her. "Needed to clear his head."

They buckled the baby in and Ruthie gave directions for the few blocks to her house. They didn't see Elliott along the way, so he was really getting out there and clearing his head, Ruthie decided, which wasn't a bad thing at all.

Poor Elliott.

Everything he believed for the past eight months was completely false. In fact, she reflected, given what they knew about Sam, probably everything he'd assumed to be the truth about her was false also. So that would mean that he'd been laboring under a misapprehension, if not living an outright lie, since he was thirteen.

Sam was no gold digger; Ruthie could tell, just in the short time she'd been with her. Her clothing was modest and inexpensive, as was her rental car. Her bag and shoes were the accessories of a frugal person. Only Liam was dressed in what could be considered "nice" things, and they were more just cute and clean than anything.

Pop was standing on their porch when they arrived, waiting for them, smiling a welcome, lest Sam think she was unwanted or that the visit was too abrupt.

God bless Pop. Ruthie hugged him with gratitude and affection when they got to the porch.

"Pop, this is Elliott's stepmother, Samairah Banks," Ruthie said with a smile as she let him go.

"Welcome to our home, Samairah," Pop said, smiling the smile that made straight women everywhere wish he were straight too. "Who's the little man?" he asked, taking the car seat from her and leading them inside. "And where's Elliott?"

"This is Liam, Elliott's half-brother. And Elliott wanted to walk a little, get some air," Ruthie explained.

Pop just nodded.

They all got comfortable in the family room, where Pop had built a fire to take the edge off the chill. Ruthie and Sam sat, while Pop disappeared into the kitchen. Amal Clooney and Clarence Darrow were very interested in the baby, and Ruthie began to call them away when Sam interrupted her.

"No, it's fine," she told her. "The fastest way to get them to stop is to just let them sniff and explore, you know? He's a little creature, like them, of course they're going to be interested.

"Come, little guys, come meet Liam," she said to the cat and dog, and what few reservations Ruthie had about her dissolved. No one who was this kind to animals, who respected them, could be a bad person, she told herself firmly.

"So you're Elliott's girlfriend, I take it?" she asked, smiling as she watched the animals become friends with Liam. She picked him up and sat him on her lap, and he smiled a droolly smile at the cat and dog.

Ruthie nodded.

"He always had an eye for the prettiest girl around," Sam quipped with a smile.

"No, I'm far from the prettiest," Ruthie protested. "I think I was just loudest, you know?"

Her pop entered then, bearing a tray of tea, "though I could make coffee if you prefer," he said, and some banana bread that he'd made in the morning.

"So, what had Elliott said to you about me?" she asked, taking a deep breath.

"Well, let's just say that he didn't really know what was going on," Ruthie said diplomatically. "He thought you'd kept him from fulfilling his dream, you know? But now he knows, he must know, that none of that was true."

"He was still a child, I'm assuming, when you came into his life?" Pop interjected, and again Ruthie marveled at his gift of empathy, of somehow just knowing how things were and what to say.

"Yes, he was just turned thirteen," Sam told them. "So vulnerable, and in so much pain. How could he not be, though?" Her beautiful eyes grew bright with tears as she spoke. "He was trying so hard to be brave, always, but you could see how much he missed his mum.

"I didn't know if I should try to approach him or not," she said. "I tried to take the middle path, and be a friend. I knew better than to try to be his mum, but I couldn't do anything right, it seemed."

"I'm sure Elliott wasn't in a place to accept anything from you," Pop said gently.

Ruthie felt a little disloyal to be discussing Elliott behind his back, so she remained silent. Pop somehow understood this as well, however, and turned the conversation to the baby; when Elliott appeared, half an hour later, they were all laughing and watching the baby with the cat and dog.

Elliott smiled at the tableau, grabbed a piece of banana bread and joined them in encouraging Liam to pet the dog.

"So," he said when there was a lull in the conversation. "I guess I owe you an apology, Samairah."

Sam was nursing Liam, who'd fallen asleep. She placed him in the car seat, covered him with his blanket, and turned to Elliott.

"If you're offering one, I'm surely going to accept it, Elliott Banks." She put a hand on his arm. "I know you suffered so much, and my being in your life made it just that much worse, and for that I apologize to you, okay?"

Elliott just nodded. "Thanks for accepting my apology. I know I treated you badly, both before and after my father died. I just really believed that you had the money, that you'd pulled the plug on me--" He shook his head. "I can't believe my grandparents would do such a thing. Even for them, it's really low."

"Never mind about them, Elliott," Samairah encouraged. "Just finish the year and come back, and go to LDAA."

"With what?" Elliott asked, perplexed. "I have no money to pay for it until I'm twenty-one or whatever."

Ruthie wondered if she and her pop should leave, but he remained where he was, so she did too.

"I'll pay," Samairah said, her voice firm.

"What?" Elliott looked at her, shocked."You haven't any money, Sam!" And Ruthie wondered if he was even aware of calling her by the shortened, more familiar and familial form of her name.

"You're my family, Elliott," Sam said. "When I married your father, I took vows, and I don't take them lightly. He always thought of you first, and worried endlessly about what would happen to you if you couldn't overcome your sorrow over your loss. It killed him that you were so distant, but you were always first in his heart, which is how it should be.

"When I took Liam to be my husband, I took you as my child," she declared.

Ruthie moved to sit by Elliott, taking his cold hand in her own.

"I have a bit of money, and I think I can get your fees together, at least for this year, as long as things stay the way they are now. I'll continue living with my family, and we can do something, I swear it."

Ruthie realized that, though she was slight in stature, there was something magnificent about Samairah, something like a lioness.

Wow.

But Elliott was shaking his head as he released Ruthie's hand and put his arms around her. "I can't let you do that, I can't. You have a child of your own, and he should be your priority," he told Sam. "It means so much that you'd even offer, honestly, and it makes me feel so bad about how I treated you--Christ, I was so mean to you--"

"You were a teenaged boy who'd lost his mother," Sam answered. "Please, think no more about it, Elliott.

"I'm just so happy to see you doing well here. I mean, these past hours notwithstanding, you seem happy and well, with Ruthie here," she added, gesturing toward his girlfriend. "Now that I've seen for myself you're doing fine, I can go back to England and not worry anymore." She sat back on the sofa, as if she were relaxing at last.

"Oh, no, please stay a couple of days," Elliott begged. "Though I don't know where you'd stay," he added.

"I'd just planned to check into a hotel, anyway," she told him. "I'd like to stay a couple of days and really talk to you, if you'd be okay with that?"

"Sounds like a plan," Pop interjected. "And you can just stay here, Sam; we have a spare bedroom and everything. No more nonsense about a hotel, hmm?"

Sam demurred, saying she couldn't intrude, but Pop soon wore her down, and he went to bring her things in from her car.

"Thanks, Pop," Ruthie said to him in the front hall. "You and Dad are just the best parents a girl could ever hope for."

"Nah, we're just investing in the future of Ms. Ruthie Barakat Grimaldi, Esquire, Attorney at Law," Pop teased, chucking her gently under her chin.

"We love you, Ruthie, and we want you to be happy, always."

"Thanks, Pop, I love you too."