Kelly had been unprepared for Derek's anger when she told him of her offer to raise Alice's baby.
"I have a certain kind of life planned with you," he admonished her. "And that life does NOT include raising some bastard kid of Alice's!"
"Derek, we have discussed many times that the reason we have CHOSEN to plan a life together is because we share the same moral values," Kelly said, trying to be calm, though she was starting to cry.
"And," she continued, "I wish I didn't have to tell you this, but my fear is that Alice will get an abortion. ANOTHER abortion."
"And if I can save an innocent little baby, I WILL."
Derek glared at her and stormed out of the house.
But he was already feeling bad about exploding at his new wife.
_______________
"Can you BELIEVE she did that???" Derek, still fuming, asked Bill.
"Actually, I can," Bill told him.
Bill went on. "Admittedly, I had a lot more notice than you did--and I didn't get hammered by being blindsided by my woman. But I knew about Alice's previous abortion. And Kelly is a known quantity, morally, so I'm not surprised she said whatever she thought she had to in order to keep Alice from having another abortion."
Derek said nothing, and seemed to be in a daze.
"But, hey, if you want my opinion," Bill said, "I don't think it's going to come to that. You know--that you and Kelly would end up raising Alice's kid. Because Regina and I already told Alice that she's welcome to live with us as long as she wants.
"And Regina and I work from home, so there won't be an issue with babysitting. And Peter said he'll pitch in financially. And--remember--we don't yet know what Dude's reaction will be. Although we're apparently going to have to wait another week for that, because Alice refuses to call him while he's on tour with Zoe's band."
"I suppose it's not impossible that Dude COULD actually end up doing the right thing," Derek mused.
_______________
Derek found Kelly in their backyard, making cupcakes to sell to the local bakery.
"Kelly, I'm SO sorry for having yelled at you," Derek apologized.
"I know," she said calmly, if a bit sadly.
"What do you mean, you 'know'?" he asked, curious.
"Because," she explained, "if I thought you were the kind of man who wouldn't feel bad about talking to his wife that way, I wouldn't have married you in the first place."
"Kelly, would you please accept this rose?" he asked.
She was amused. "Now, WHERE did you find a rose in the last half hour?" she asked.
"Well, actually, Regina picked them when she was out harvesting this morning," he said sheepishly. "But she didn't mind that I took one for you."
"Hey," he continued, "let's go over to Regina and Bill's--Regina wants to have an early dinner with all of us, to 'normalize' things for Alice before Alice has to go to work this evening."
"Because you KNOW this episode with Rafael had to be just awful for her," he added, hoping that Kelly would take notice of his professed concern for Alice.
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Custom content credits are in post #69.
What a nice man. Well my guess was wrong. I didn't have the full story.......
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