June 2024

No Name Restaurant: Dining Room

Amalia perused the menu and ignored her father’s somewhat impatient huff. Amalia alternated which parent she was going to piss off each week and it was Johnny Zacchara’s turn. She’d decided that if they couldn’t be civil to one another, then she wouldn’t bother being civil to them. In a world completely controlled by adults, it was her one rebellion. Sure, she spent most of her life grounded but since she could always wheedle calls and visits from her girl Jules, then it really wasn’t much of a problem. Nadine had a very maternal feeling towards Juliet and Johnny didn’t want to risk annoying Jason Morgan.

“This place closes eventually, Li,” Johnny said. “So you either choose or I will.”

“I’ll have the garden salad,” Amalia remarked. She closed her menu and handed it to the server, smiling brightly. “Thanks.”

“Ten minutes to choose lettuce,” Johnny muttered, reaching for a cigarette. “You must get that from your mother.”

“And I get my sparkling personality from you,” Amalia said shortly, “so I guess I have the best of both worlds.” She tapped her spoon restlessly against her plate. Her father did his best to ignore it but after a few minutes he grabbed the spoon from her.

“You just don’t feel right unless you’re locked in your room, do you?” he demanded.

“There isn’t anything remotely important happening this week,” she informed her father. “Jules and Jake both had their birthday bashes last month and Mal Drake’s party isn’t until September, so you can ground me for the rest of the summer if you want.”

“If your mother isn’t going to bother disciplining you, I might have to.”

She ignored the dig at her mother. She was very good at ignoring that since every other word out of Johnny Zacchara was disparaging to his first ex-wife. “So, what are your other plans for the summer?” she asked with a smirk. “Wife number four maybe?”

“I have about had it with your attitude,” Johnny said, slapping his hand down on the linen table cloth. “This is supposed to be a celebration of your graduation from middle school but if you’re going to insist on being a brat, we’ll just go home.”

“Oh, please,” Amalia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s a threat. You’ll just send me back to Mom and punish me that way.”

“You know, all this tossing you back and forth between me and your mom hasn’t had any benefits for you,” Johnny said after a moment. “Maybe we need to revisit the situation.”

Amalia stared at him suspiciously. This was new. Her parents had shared joint custody since their divorce. One week with Nadine, the next with Johnny. She alternated major holidays. Was this Johnny’s way of saying she’d finally pissed him off enough and he was going to dump her full time with her mom? “Maybe we do,” she said cautiously.

“I’ll talk to my lawyer when we get back to the house,” Johnny said. “You can still see your mom when you want, but you should be in one house full time.”

“Wait, what?” Amalia pushed away from the table. “You want Mom to give up custody?”

“What did you think I was suggesting?” he demanded. “Obviously, your bad behavior has been egged on by your mother because I certainly don’t put up with it.”

“You have lost your mind!” Amalia shot to her feet. “You are not taking my mother away from me!”

“I’m not trying to take anything—” Johnny broke off and glanced around at the surrounding tables and the interested gazes at each one. “Amalia, sit the hell down!” he hissed.

“No, you’re being completely irrational and I’m not going to sit here and listen to it. For the record, I piss Mom off just as much and she grounds me too.” She grabbed her purse and stalked out of the restaurant. When she heard her father’s heavy footsteps, she broke into a run. She’d been the star of her school track team and found it ridiculously easy to shoot into an alley, duck into a doorway and down behind a dumpster to lose him.

Her father had lost his freaking mind!

She dug her cell phone out of her small clutch and dialed the number of the only person who could and would pick her up right now.

“Jake? Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”

Fifteen minutes later, her best friend’s older brother pulled up in the cherry red convertible he’d received as a present for getting his driver’s license. At seventeen, Jake Morgan was the starring attraction in the dreams of most of the girls Amalia knew and probably a lot that she didn’t. He’d inherited his father’s blond hair and piercing blue eyes, not to mention his spectacular build.

If Amalia was just a year older, she could probably give those other girls a run for their money, but alas, she had just turned fourteen and was clearly not in his league.

Yet.

“My favorite best friend’s brother,” Amalia said cheerfully, planting herself in the front seat. “You are such a lifesaver.”

“Uh huh,” Jake remarked. He slid his sunglasses down to peer at her. “What did you do to get dumped off here?”

“I wasn’t dumped.” She rolled her eyes and huffed. “My father started to go insane so I left.”

“And John Zacchara just let you walk out of the No Name?” Jake said. He pushed his shades back up and put the car into gear. “Be real, Li.”

“Fine.” She folded her arms underneath her chest. “I ran and hid. But seriously, can you blame me? He was talking about suing my mom for full residential custody. He’s gone loco.”

“Way I hear it, he was never completely sane anyway.” Jake maneuvered a corner. “I suppose I’m taking you to see Jules.”

“Please. We need to discuss what I’m supposed to do and plus, my father is never going to burst into your place looking for me. He wouldn’t want to insult your dad.” Amalia shook her head. “Can you imagine? After ten years of tossing me back and forth, he thinks now is a good time for me to live with him! I think he’s just tired of sharing his house with random wives.” She pursed her lips. “You are so lucky your father isn’t nuts.” She slid a glance at him. “But I guess you’d rather have my problem, huh?”

“You mean having my parents fight over me like a bone?” Jake crossed over the border that separated downtown Port Charles from the elegant residential district that he and his family resided in.  “I guess. But I doubt I’ll know what that’s like unless Dad remarries.”

“Never going to happen,” Amalia shook her head. “He’d have to, you know, decide what happened to your mom.”

“Yeah, and he’d rather pretend she never existed,” he muttered. He pulled into the two car driveway and switched off the engine. “I can’t decide what’s healthier—pretending she never existed or just waiting around for her to come back. I guess he’d rather not deal with the obvious.”

“That she’s dead,” Amalia murmured. An option she had tried to suggest to Juliet but her best friend never wanted to consider that. As far as Jules was concerned, her mother was out there somewhere and had an excellent reason for abandoning her family.

“And that it’s his fault.”

Amalia digested that and tapped her fingernails against her denim clad thigh. “Well, yeah, I guess that would be an excellent reason for him to prefer the other options.” She frowned. “Jake, you’re like older than me.”

“Um, yeah,” Jake said slowly as if she were the loco one now.

“No, I mean, you’re older than me so people tend to tell you stuff they would never tell me and Jules. Except my aunt Claudia,” Amalia frowned. “She doesn’t really pay attention to my age.” She grabbed his arm. “Have you ever heard any gossip about my parents?”

“Um.” He stared at her hand and then at her. “Well, yeah, sometimes. Nothing that you’d want to hear—”

“I want to hear plenty,” she assured him. “No one knows or would tell me anyway why they broke up or what they were like while they were married and all I’ve ever seen them do is fight, so I’m just kind of curious if you or even Cam might know anything.”

“Cam would know more, you know.  Your mom came over a lot, I think, after my mom…” Jake hesitated. “Wasn’t here anymore,” he finally settled for. “He would have some first hand stuff.”

“But you’ve got gossip,” Amalia narrowed her eyes. “You do, don’t you?”

“Only that people thought for a while that they were happy,” Jake shrugged. “At least for the first few years after you were born. Aunt Carly said that the most well-balanced she’d ever seen Johnny Zacchara was after he’d become a dad so knocking up your mom had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.”

“Seriously?” Her mouth dropped open. “My parents were happy together? I didn’t think they knew what that word meant.”

“Aunt Carly said that they were happy one second and then like someone flipped a switch, they were at each other throats and your mom moved out when you were like three. Bitter divorce, I think. Put Aunt Carly and Sonny Corinthos to shame, actually, the way I hear it. They fought over everything. The money, the house, you. But this is all second hand stuff, Li; I don’t know what might be true.”

“It never occurred to me to ask you or Cam.” Amalia digested what Jake had told her. “Okay, well my parents liking each other is definitely an interesting theory. I’ll have to consider it. Is Cam coming home from school this summer? Jules said he might stick around Boston.”

“Nah, he called last night. He’ll be home next week.” Jake opened his car door and stepped out.

Amalia sighed and stepped out into the driveway. “It sucks the way your dad keeps Jules from knowing anything about your mom. She was so little when it happened. You and Cam at least have something.”

“Cam has more,” Jake admitted as they walked up the front path. “Me, it’s more like I have a vague idea but he actually has tangible memories. Drove Jules crazy when she realized that.”

“Lots of things drive Jules crazy,” Amalia remarked. They entered the house and she looked towards the stairs. “Well, I guess I better go fill in Jules and get her advice on what to do now. Thanks for the ride home.”

Jake watched his little sister’s best friend dash up the staircase and exhaled slowly. Amalia Zacchara was three years younger than him (very nearly to the day) but she sure was growing up fast. In a couple of years, the age difference between them wouldn’t mean amount to much. After all, his father had been seven years older than his mom and everyone knew Jason Morgan had had an eye on Elizabeth Webber since she was eighteen.

Upstairs, Amalia burst into her friend’s room. “Jules, you won’t believe what happened—” she stopped when she saw Juliet sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up under her chin. “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.

Juliet sniffled. “I was cleaning my room.”

Amalia lowered herself onto the bed. “Always a reason for sulking,” she said.

“No, I mean I was cleaning out under my bed and my dad came in. We were talking about the party Aunt Carly’s throwing at the hotel and I wasn’t paying attention.” Juliet sniffled again. “I knocked over The Box.”

Amalia’s mouth formed an ‘O’ as she realized exactly why Juliet was upset. The Box contained all the pictures and clippings of Elizabeth Webber Morgan that the teen had hoarded over the years, not something that Jason Morgan would have been happy to see, especially after all the trouble he’d gone through to keep Juliet from asking questions about her mother.

“And what did your dad say?”

“Nothing,” Juliet said. “Which was the worst part, you know. This picture of my mom that Robin gave me fell out first, it was from the wedding. He just stared at it and then picked it up, put it back in and took the whole box with him. He never said a word.” Juliet wiped her hand over her eyes. “But he just looked…” she hesitated.  “He looked destroyed.”

Jacks Home: Living Room

“If you think for one second that I don’t know what you’re up to tonight, then you apparently don’t give me enough credit,” Carly Jacks told her daughter with a smirk. Fifteen-year-old Cecily Jane Jacks arched an eyebrow.

“And what exactly do you think I’m up to?”

“Well, I think that you’re not going to be anywhere near Pauline’s room and that it’s more likely that you think you’re going down to the quarry with Mal.”

Cecily huffed. “You’re insane.”

“I’m also right.” Carly tapped her foot. “And don’t think for one second that your father and I won’t take you to Pauline’s and sit outside all night to make sure you’re there.”

Cecily’s cheeks flushed with anger and she stomped her foot. “You guys are so mean! None of the other kids have to go through this!”

“None of the other kids were caught with their boyfriend in the music room at school,” Carly retorted. “So what’s it gonna be? Am I gonna have to call Pauline every hour on the hour and are you really going to make me have to call Mal’s mother to make sure he’s home?”

“That’s so embarrassing, Mom!” Cecily shrieked. “You don’t even like Mal’s mother, why would you do that?”

“Because as much as Robin Drake and I dislike each other, we want our kids to be safe. So make your choice. You and Pauline can stay here tonight or I can just stay up all night outside her house. It’s up to you.”

Cecily glared at her mother but Carly was the original stubborn mule and the teenager finally gave in. “I’ll call Pauline and tell her she has to come here. You’re such a nerd.” She stomped up the stairs.

“Why do girls have to be so much worse than boys?” Carly muttered, collapsing on the couch in exhaustion. Morgan hadn’t been nearly this difficult at her age and…she sighed, rubbing her temple. She wondered if Michael would have been as easy going as his brother or as temperamental as his sister? But he’d never passed the age of twelve—had died on the floor of Corinthos & Morgan warehouse, the victim of a bullet meant for Sonny Corinthos.

Sonny had been killed mere weeks later. He’d lost it after Michael’s death and no matter how Jason had tried to hold him back, he’d gone after Johnny Zacchara in retaliation. Carly had never blamed the younger man for killing Sonny. He’d been protecting himself and Sonny hadn’t had any real evidence of the Zacchara’s involvement. There’d been a trial but Johnny had been acquitted.

In the sixteen years since her son’s death, the pain had faded. Carly had conceived their daughter only months later, and it had essentially saved her sanity. She’d been drifting into a depression that would have caused her marriage to crumble eventually but she and Jax had focused their love on Morgan and their daughter and had somehow rebuilt their lives.

But Carly thought about Michael all the time. He’d be twenty-six, his own man. Maybe married. Maybe Carly would have been a grandmother by now.

Carly shook her head to clear herself of the somber thoughts. It was never best to dwell on those sorts of things for too long.

There was a light knock on her front door and then Jason pushed it open. She started to smile and greet him, but something about the look on her best friend’s face had the greeting dying on her lips. “Jase, what’s wrong?” She got to her feet. “Is it one of the kids?”

“Ah, no.” Jason Morgan closed the door behind himself and stepped down into her living room. He held a dusty shoe box in his hands. “I found this in Juliet’s room today.”

Carly frowned and took the box from him, setting it on her coffee table. She took her seat and carefully opened it. Her eyes softened as she removed the photo of Jason’s wife on her wedding day. And then the clipping of their wedding announcement. A long forgotten photo of Elizabeth, huge with pregnancy. Another of Elizabeth and the boys. Another newspaper clipping when Elizabeth’s grandmother had died.

A photo of Elizabeth with infant Juliet, mere weeks before her vanishing.

“Oh, Jase…” She tugged her friend down next to her. “Are you all right?”

“I—” He cleared his throat. “I haven’t looked at a photo of her in nearly thirteen years,” he admitted. “I packed them away with her things when I came home and I put them in your basement.  I didn’t even want them in the house.”

“I know, Jase. It’s all still downstairs,” Carly assured him. “I always saved them for Jules. Or if, you know…” she trailed off. If Elizabeth came home, which had seemed like a remote possibility thirteen years ago when she’d vanished. Now of course, Carly knew the boxes in the basement would be for Juliet and her brothers. “What did Juliet say?”

“Nothing,” Jason shook his head. “She was upset that I found them, I guess, but I just took the box and left.”

“Well…” she hesitated.  “You knew Jules would have questions about her. It’s hard for a girl without her mom and it’s only natural she’s curious.”

“I know,” he said.

“We all agreed that we shouldn’t talk about her around the kids so that they would be able to move on and have normal lives but they’re going to be curious. I’m sure Jules has pumped her brother for information. It’s her mother, Jase. You weren’t going to be able to hide her forever.”

“I know,” Jason repeated, “but I guess…I thought Juliet would come to me with her questions.” He looked at his oldest friend with grief. “Have I made it so difficult for my kids to talk about their mother with me?”

“No,” Carly said slowly, “but I think the boys—especially Cameron—knew that you had taken it badly and it’s possible he also cautioned Jake and Jules to keep the talk to a minimum around you. They love you so much, Jase, they were just trying to protect you.”

“She shouldn’t be in a box under Juliet’s bed,” Jason said quietly. He reached for the last photograph—of Elizabeth and Jason, with all three kids, in the living room. It was only portrait of the five of them that existed and he knew where his daughter had found it. “You gave her some of these.”

“Ah…” Carly smiled weakly. “Yeah. Well, Jules had her questions and I answered what I thought I could. She was only about ten then and not old enough for some of it. She started to cry because she didn’t know what her mother looked like. I couldn’t let her leave like that, Jase, so I picked out some of the best ones I had in an album. I’m sorry, I should have told you she came to me, but no one wanted to discuss it with you. We were worried…”  Carly shrugged. “We were worried that you might finally realize…”

“That she’s never coming back,” Jason said roughly, putting the picture back in the box. “You all think she’s dead.”

“I don’t want to think that,” Carly assured him. “No one wants to think that. But as much as Elizabeth and I didn’t really get along, even if she had left unwillingly, in all this time—she would have found a way to get word to her kids at the very least and I don’t believe she would have left willingly. Not her kids. Even if she didn’t love you anymore, she would never have left her kids.”

“So of course she has to be dead.” He pushed himself to his feet and crossed the mantel. “It’s crossed my mind, you know.  I thought that she must be dead because Elizabeth wouldn’t have left—not that way. She had too much backbone to abandon her kids and her marriage. If we had problems, she would have been upfront about it but you know, we weren’t having problems.” He stopped, his voice at the breaking point. “We were happier in the months since Juliet was born than either of us had been in years.”

“And that’s why the people who know you and love you—and Elizabeth…” Carly stood, “that’s why we think she’s dead.” It was a relief to be speaking these words finally. Maybe Jason could grieve and find a way to put his wife in his past.

“I know and I don’t blame you for thinking that but I would feel it.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I just…I would know if something had happened to her. I always could. When Diego Alcazar kidnapped her, when she was in that hotel, having those cramps with Jake, I could feel that something was wrong. I would know if she was dead, Carly. She’s not dead.”

“It’s been thirteen years, Jase,” Carly murmured. “Your little girl needs more than a feeling. She needs to know about her mother and the only person who can truly give Elizabeth to her is the person who loved her most in the world and that’s you.”

“I need to have Elizabeth’s things brought back to the house,” Jason said after a long silence. “I want to go through them with the kids. When Cam comes home next week, we need to talk about her.” He hesitated. “I’d like for you, Jax and the kids to be there. If you can.”

“Of course,” Carly murmured. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms tightly around her oldest and dearest friend. “Whatever you and the kids need, you know that Jax and I will always be there for you.”

← Prologue | Chapter Two →