The Long Road Revisited
by Terry

Chapter 2

The following morning, Johnny was sitting on the sofa after taking advantage of a few extra hours of sleep on his first day of vacation when he heard a soft knock on the door. Rising eagerly from the couch he went to answer it knowing he would find Alexis standing there with a newspaper under one arm, Kristina held close within the other and a portable dining cart next to her filled with coffee and pastries.

While Joy and Alexis succeeded in building quite a friendship between the two of them, Johnny and Alexis were just as close as ever. Their time together at Ferncliff proved to Alexis that there were people in the world who really could be counted on and trusted. It was now a ritual of sorts for Alexis to come by every Wednesday morning bearing coffee and doughnuts. They would sit for a couple of hours and talk about anything and everything that was going on in their lives. The time made for a much longer day for Johnny, given his work and school schedule, but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t give up his time with Alexis for anything. He still needed her in more ways than he cared to admit and Johnny knew that as much as she loved Joy, Alexis depended on her time with him too.

Their disagreement from the night before weighed heavy on his mind, but when he looked closer to try and gauge her mood, he breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing about her that suggested she was upset with him. In fact she actually looked a little pre-occupied. Choosing not to spoil the mood, he put the displeasure of the previous night behind him and bowed at the waist and with a sweeping gesture of his arm inviting her in.

“M’lady, your throne awaits you. I’ve been up for hours waiting on you. These little weekly visits of ours have become a habit my stomach does not like to be kept waiting on.”

Alexis looked at him with a contrived look of annoyance as she handed Kristina to him. “I wonder how much that little speech of yours would cost you if I put you under oath with a penalty of perjury hanging over your head.” Moving past him with her best defense counsel demeanor she rolled the cart through the door and placed it next to the sofa before turning to complete her thought. “And lest you think it a good idea to finish regaling me with your morning’s activity… Joy called me from work a couple of hours ago and asked that I let you sleep a while longer since it was your first day of vacation.”

Handing Kristina back to Alexis as he reached for a doughnut, Johnny scowled in good humor and returned to his seat on the sofa. “There’s just no winning with you two, is there?”

Sitting down beside him, Alexis shrugged nonchalantly before reaching for a cup of coffee.

“It defies all reason why you keep trying. We are two very smart and very resourceful women. You know, you really should give yourself a break and just accept the fact that your wife and I will always have the upper hand where you are concerned.”

Johnny leaned forward and placed his half eaten doughnut on the coffee table before turning around to pour himself a cup of coffee letting his own personal arrow fly and then waited for it to hit its intended mark. “Like the upper hand you have with Sonny?”

There were certain things Johnny learned that could silence Alexis without too much effort. Her relationship with Sonny was filled with opportunities just waiting to be turned into pot shots at the least little hint of being teased by her. She became instantly flustered and completely lost her ability to keep up her end of a verbal joust. Johnny got a kick out of it every time he was able to get a dig in and cause Alexis to sputter incoherently. This time Alexis was right in the middle of taking a sip of coffee and just as Johnny’s remark sank in, she choked. He quickly grabbed Kristina to protect her from a spray of hot coffee while her mother jumped up coughing vigorously. Finally catching her breath Alexis looked back at Johnny with a glint in her eye and mocked him by mimicking his previous bow.

“Fine, O-Great-Master-of-Wit-And-Sarcasm, you win that one.”

“Thank you, now sit back down and tell me what’s put you in such rare form this morning. I kind of figured you wouldn’t show up given that fight last night with you-know-who.”

Alexis reached to take Kristina from Johnny then settled her in the bassinet that Joy kept in their living room. She lingered just long enough to make sure Kristina was comfortable and willing to be put down for a while before taking her seat beside Johnny again.

“There was something else on my agenda for last night, but with Sonny and everything else… well, I thought it best to just wait until this morning. I mean I did need to talk to you about something and I guess with everything that happened… it was probably best that we didn’t get around to it. Well, because I think maybe you and I should probably talk about it first before you tell Joy… that is if you want to share it with her… which I’m sure you will… but that’s probably a decision you will want to make for yourself without my input. But, in my opinion I think you should tell Joy… I mean it does or will affect her… “

Johnny could tell Alexis was nervous about something by the way her eyes were shifting back and forth and her breathing was a little off not to mention her rambling. There was something pretty heavy going on and he figured the best way to calm her down so she could talk to him was to try and lighten things up… ease her tension. Getting her to laugh would do the trick if she weren’t too far gone.

“Just say it Alexis. If you don’t you’re going to pass out on me and then I’ll have to worry about Sonny taking my head off because I let his wi… girlfr… compan… hell, just what are you two calling yourselves this week anyway?”

He wasn’t disappointed. Alexis slapped him on the arm blushing profusely and laughed completely aware of the absolute truth behind Johnny’s words.

“Ok Mr. Smarty, while ‘wife’ has yet to become one of those descriptions… you somehow seem to have convinced yourself that you have me pretty much figured out now, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t like to brag…. but... “

Turning around and leaning over the back of the sofa, Alexis pulled a manila file from the second shelf of the pastry cart and laid it in Johnny’s lap. Her voice quieted as she looked up at him with a mixture of reluctance and cautious anticipation.

“So tell me, hot shot. Did you happen to notice that I have on my favorite ‘I-did –something-just-for-my-best-friend’ outfit this morning? “

Johnny looked down at the folder in his lap and read its label. “Case #PC2945 – O’Brien, Johnny”. He looked back up at Alexis quizzically.

Taking hold of his hand, she continued. “You asked me if I would help you find out if there were any siblings out there somewhere that were related to you.”

Johnny’s chin dropped to his chest. He should have known Alexis wouldn’t forget. Her need to make good on her promises was almost as important to her as her principles. Lifting the file slowly, he stared at it as if it were something alien. He turned his head slowly and raised his eyes to meet hers. Words were not necessary. She would know when he was ready to hear what she found and she would also know that he wouldn’t be able to open the folder himself.

When Johnny raised his eyes to meet hers, Alexis saw everything Johnny was feeling. She saw his fear, the reluctant hope of a son who needed to belong and the broken heart of a little boy who for years wanted nothing more than to be loved by the woman who brought him into the world. She tightened her hold on his hand smiled encouragingly then waited until she knew he was in control enough to hear the contents of the file he still held tightly in a hand that shook and had grown moist with perspiration brought on by fear of the unknown. When she saw him resign himself to whatever he was about to learn she reached for the file. Opening it slowly she pulled a photo free from the paper clip that attached it to the file and placed it into his free hand.

“Her name is Rose Marten… and she’s your sister.”

Tears formed in the corner of Johnny’s eyes as he reached for the photo and stared into a face that hauntingly mirrored his own.

“Where… “

“She lives just outside the Port Charles city limits… in ‘The South Side’ neighborhood.”

“The South Side?”

“Yes.”

The southern region of Port Charles was where the best of the middle class resided. It was the quietest and safest area of Port Charles. A neighborhood filled with children laughing, tumbling around on thick green lush lawns, little girls lying quietly on their backs watching lazy clouds drift by as they dreamed of growing up, young boys racing by on bicycles hoping to be noticed. There were times when Johnny wanted to escape his life for a while and remember what it felt like to be so free, so careless. When those times came, he would drive to the south side and park his car to just sit and watch. He would sit there and dream of raising his own family some day right there in the middle of ‘The South Side’ of Port Charles away from the violence and unease of Sonny’s world. As the photo in his hand shook slightly Johnny looked back up at Alexis suddenly needing to know more.

“Then she’s… “

“Yes, she is just fine and so is her son…,” Alexis hesitated just a moment then with a voice as soft as a falling feather, “…John Edmund O’Brien Marten.”

Johnny’s head shot up, his face a mask of complete astonishment.

“My name… th-th-that… that’s my name.”

“I know. She gave her son her brothers name.”

A chill ran through Johnny and he shifted uncomfortably. If there was a sister who knew about him, knew his real birth name, then…

“Wh-What about… d-did you find… is she… ”

Johnny pulled away from Alexis and stood to walk across the room. He stopped beside the bassinet, reached down and ran his finger gently down Kristina’s cheek. He turned his head slightly unwilling to take his eyes from the child as he felt Alexis’ hand fall on his shoulder and it gave him the courage to ask the one question that struck both fear and apprehension in his heart.

“Is she… alive?”

“Yes, Johnny. She is.”

Johnny turned abruptly away from Alexis again and took a couple of steps away from her. The air around him felt thin… he couldn’t catch a deep breath. Lifting his hands he entwined his fingers behind his head and leaned back stretching the muscles in his neck and back. It felt like someone ripped them out, tied them in knots and shoved them back into place. Releasing his grip he wrung his hands a couple of times then turned back toward Alexis.

“I have a sister… a nephew… and… “

Seeing the difficulty he was having Alexis finished his thought.

“And a mother who are all alive and living close by.”

Just as she finished her statement, Alexis saw Johnny lose his battle to contain the emotions that were tearing through him. Tears fell from his eyes as he dropped his head. In her heart she knew they were tears of anger, relief, hope and loss. She reached for him and pulled him into her arms laying his head on her shoulder as she spoke softly into his ear.

“It’s okay, Johnny. You’re okay. Nothing has to change if you don’t want it to, but you do have a family. And they are alive and want to see you. I’ve already met them and you are going to love that little nephew of yours. They call him Johnny too. Your mother gave your sister Nana’s name and your nephew bears your name. There is so much for you to hear, but I think you may want to hear it from them. Do you want to know, Johnny? Do you want to know what happened after your mother left?”

Johnny raised his head from her shoulder leaving her blouse wet with his tears and dropped his arms from around her. He turned and walked back to the sofa sitting down heavily and dropped his head into his hands.

His mother was alive. The woman who abandoned him when he was just a boy now wanted to see him. Could he? He looked over at Alexis who waited patiently to do whatever she could to help. He smiled wanly and reached out beckoning her to sit down beside him before lowering his head again. Feeling her sit beside him he reached over and pulled her hand into his. There was so much going on inside of him… and he felt like he was slowly coming apart. He just needed to hold on to someone to keep him grounded.

“I thought that when the time came I would handle it better than this. I thought she couldn’t hurt me anymore. But she can, Alexis. Sitting here right now, knowing she’s only a few miles away… she’s the one that walked away. I didn’t. I stayed there day after day after day waiting for her. Waiting to see if she would come home… waiting for her to care enough about me to make sure I was still alive. I cried night after night for her… waking up at the least little sound hoping it was her… and at the same time terrified at who she would bring home with her next. How am I supposed to look her in the face and forget all of that? You asked me if I was going to let her dictate how I lived the rest of my life… you remember don’t you… what we talked about that last day we went to the gazebo. I walked away from there thinking I left all the bad stuff there. But, I didn’t. It’s still with me. All of the anger and hurt is still with me. I just did a damn good job of covering it up again. It was easy because I found myself a new family… a new life. I didn’t need her because I had you guys. So I just shoved it all away again and convinced myself that I let it go. Geez, Alexis; what would she think of me now… what would my Nana think of me now?”

Johnny was working himself up into quite a state and Alexis needed to find a way to calm him down. Wrapping her arm around his waist she rested her chin on his shoulder as she lay her hand within his once again.

“Johnny, your Nana Rose would know how difficult it would be for her grandson to let go of a lifetime of hurt. She would not fault you for what you are feeling right now. What I do think she would ask of you is that you remember what she taught you about forgiveness. She made a request of you Johnny just before she died. And I know that if you don’t honor that request, you will not be able to live with yourself.”

“I know. I have to see ‘her’ even if it’s only long enough to give her Nana’s message. I don’t have a choice. I promised Nana.”

All of a sudden Alexis’ words of a few moments before sank into Johnny’s consciousness. Lifting his head quickly, his hand tightened painfully around hers.

“You saw her? Alexis? Did you say you saw her?”

Alexis gently pried her fingers loose from his grip and waved off his look of apology. She was trying to get him to lighten up a little.

“It’s ok… a little loss of blood circulation between friends is nothing to get worked up about, and yes I saw her. But more importantly, I spoke to her. Johnny I wasn’t willing to put you two together unless I knew before hand what you would hear from her. I just couldn’t do that to you.”

“So you know what she’s been up to for the past 30 years,” spat Johnny with barely controlled anger driven sarcasm.

“Yes. But, I want to ask you a question before we go any further. Okay?”

Johnny nodded succinctly so Alexis took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She wasn’t sure just how much information his Nana shared with him before dying, but given what Alexis now knew, it was imperative that she ‘handle’ what she knew very carefully.

“Are you going to be able to handle seeing her and then have to let go of her again?”

“What do you mean, ‘let go of her again’?” Is she still up to her same old tricks?” Johnny stood up raising his voice angrily and began pacing as he thought of the little boy who carried his name. “Is she doing the same thing to my sister and nephew that she did to me? Tell me, Alexis. Are they in danger from the kind of life she leads?”

Johnny’s voice was filled with protection for two people who were just revealed to be his family, while at the same time Alexis heard a wealth of bitterness and anger toward a mother who she knew was now paying the price for her mistakes. She went over to the bassinet to make sure Johnny’s raised voice had not awakened her daughter then took him by the hand and led him back to the sofa.

“Calm down, Johnny. You don’t have all the facts yet and working yourself up into a state right now is not going to help matters.”

Johnny snorted derisively before looking Alexis in the eyes. “Working myself up, Alexis? Just what am I supposed to be feeling right now? Should I be on my knees thanking God that you found my mother or jumping up and down because I have a sister that I never knew anything about or a nephew that bears my name, but has no clue who I am? Tell me Alexis, what am I allowed to feel about all of this?”

Johnny’s pain was so deep that he was unaware of how harsh his words sounded or that he was directing them toward someone he held as close as he did his Nana Rose. He saw her hands rise to cup his face and the look in her eyes was filled with pain. Her pain was for him, for his loss, for what he was feeling… he bent his head toward her and lay his forehead against hers as his harsh words echoed in his head.

“I’m sorry, Alexis. I didn’t mean… “

“Shhh… Johnny, I know you didn’t. I can see what this is doing to you, but there is so much that you do not know. And I think that maybe we should wait until Joy comes home to finish this. “

An image of Joy filled his head and Johnny’s heart filled with her. His Joy… his heart and soul. Joy would want to be with him through this. She would want to stand beside him while he fought the demons of anger and bitterness. Joy… loving him gave her pleasure just as loving her filled him with hope. With Joy his past seemed to dim and the pain of it lessened. He knew he would share everything with her… but not yet. Not until he knew it was settled within himself first.

“No, Alexis. Not until I know what I’m dealing with here.”

“But Johnny, she could… “

Johnny leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead then stepped away. He had no intention of leaving Joy out of it at all, he just needed to deal with it on his own first in case he needed to prepare Joy for the worst.

“Alexis, we do it my way partner. My mother… my family… my wife… my way. Okay?”

“Alright, Johnny. If you’re sure that’s the way you want it… “

“It is. Now come on. It’s time you tell me what you found out. I don’t want to hear it from ‘her’. I don’t trust her. It has to be you. Alexis, you have to tell me what she’s been up to and how I got a sister out of the whole mess.”

Alexis returned to the sofa, sat down and picked up the manila file folder. She took a deep breath then began to tell a story that caused quite a few tears of her own to spill while putting it all together for Johnny. And she knew that the coming moments were going to be the hardest of Johnny’s life.