Five Things That Might or Might Not Have Happened to Natalia Rivera
By Fewthistle

Disclaimer: They belong to P&G and Telexnet and CBS and many other undeserving idiots who treated them will all the respect shown a five dollar hooker. Shame.

Author's Note: This is a belated birthday gift for the lovely Columbus , who is so very kind and supportive of my writing and who never fails to leave me sweet words of encouragement. I do hope you like this one, my dear. I went for mostly sweet and sappy, ‘cause I know you like that. *bg*

Thanks to darandkerry and kelinswriter, my intrepid, patient, slightly daffy betas, who read and correct and offer me the best of advice, even when I don't listen. You're the best, my dear ones!!

This can be considered a companion piece to this: Five Things That Might or Might Not Have Happened to Olivia Spencer

I. At Seventeen

He cried all the time. The lady who lived in 6-B told her sagely that he had colic, told her stories of walking the floors for weeks with her own kids, offered to take him for her for a few hours so she could sleep. She listened intently, face scrunched up in concentration as she took in the meager words of advice. She shook her head ‘no' and thanked her for her help.

She spent her last three dollars on a different kind of formula, but the thin keening didn't cease. She wrapped him tightly in blankets, but he still cried, his small voice wailing shrilly, his tiny face mottled red and purple as he screamed out his discontent.

The only time he stopped crying was when she walked with him, his short, pudgy form held snuggly against her chest.

By the end of the first week of trudging slowly back and forth across the faded, torn vinyl floor of her apartment, she had memorized every worn patch, every nick and groove that marred the ugly olive green, sallow gold and burnt orange linoleum. Her arms ached, the muscles in her shoulders burning with the strain of cradling a fifteen pound child for hours on end.

When she stopped walking, he cried. When she put him down, he cried. When the low, crooning sound of her voice whispering soothing words and snatches of lullabies faltered, he cried.

By the second week, she was woozy on her feet. The sound of her slippers shuffling across the floor reminded her of her abuela, as she moved like an old woman, joints stiff and sore, limbs recalcitrant and awkward. She took him to the doctor, sat for three and a half hours at the Health Department, the waiting room packed full of young mothers and screaming babies, the smell of unwashed bodies and cheap perfume and dirty diapers melding with the mildewy scent of the ancient carpet, sending waves of nausea rising in her throat like flood waters.

They told her he had colic. They suggested new formula and swaddling blankets. They told her to walk with him and make soft, soothing sounds. They told her it would pass, eventually. She just had to be patient. Didn't she have anyone who could help her?

She scrunched up her face in concentration as she listened to their advice. She shook her head ‘no' and thanked them for their help. She stood at the checkout desk, handed them her Medicaid card, her other forms, her body in constant motion as she swayed and jiggled, the whooshing sound of her “shhhhh” met by a solemn look in Rafe's dark eyes.

“Hmm. Happy birthday,” the woman behind the desk said as she handed back the cards.

A frown formed a deep ‘v' on her forehead as a querulous, “What?' broke the comforting cadence of her voice.

“Happy birthday? It is your birthday, right? Your card says it is,” the woman replied, face curious as she met Natalia's blank stare.

“Oh. Yeah. I mean, yes, I guess it is. I sort of lost track of time. He's been colicky for a few weeks now. I guess I forgot,” she murmured in agreement, the waves of nausea returning full force.

“So, you're seventeen?” The implication was there, with all the accompanying pity and disapproval.

“Yes. I'm seventeen.”

There was no cake. No colorful streamers. No balloons attempting to tug free of insubstantial bits of string.

Just a cold, squalid apartment, a monthly check that barely kept them alive, and this small child in her arms, his dark eyes and mop of hair so like his father that each time she looked at him another shard of her broken heart fell with a splintering crash to the ground.

There were no flowers, the scent of roses filling the air. No gifts at all, at least not the kind that come with pretty wrapping and bows. Still, looking down at the now slumbering face of her son, Natalia smiled. Even at seventeen, she knew that some gifts come without fancy paper and ribbon.

She knew that, regardless of what others might say, some gifts come from God.

II. She Works Hard for the Money

By mid-morning, her hair inevitably smelled like grease and cigarettes. Her shift started at seven, barely time for her to get Rafe dressed and on the bus to school, his backpack clutched in one hand, a brown paper bag with a peanut butter sandwich in the other. Always a peanut butter sandwich. It was all she could afford.

The diner was small and cramped and sometimes it was hard to maneuver through the maze of tables and booths. Occasionally, she had to step over a work boot-clad foot stretched out in the aisle, its owner too tired coming off the graveyard shift to worry about tripping her and sending her reeling into the tables with a full tray of pancakes and coffee.

She shifted the fabric of her dress, trying to settle the tight material across her shoulders. The diner's owner had watched one too many episodes of Alice , deciding that pink polyester uniforms were all the rage. The material was scratchy, the white collar sewn on with cheap thread that rubbed against the soft skin of her neck, leaving a thin circle of red that she ran her finger over and over, as she stood naked in the bathroom of her apartment late at night.

The backs of her hands were spotted with tiny grease burns from grabbing up orders balanced precariously along the edge of the grill. There was a darker, crescent shaped burn along the tender skin of her wrist from the rounded burner of the coffeemaker one of the other girls had forgotten to turn off. One of the cooks had told her to rub butter into it and wrap it in plastic wrap but they were short staffed and she had too many tables to deal with. Besides, how was she supposed to work with her arm encased in Saran wrap?

At three she heard the brakes of the school bus squeal to a halt at the corner and she hurried out, the bite of the January wind cutting through the thin fabric of her uniform, sashaying up under the edge of her skirt, frigid against her stocking clad skin. Rafe stepped off the bus, still small for seven, his short legs forcing him to jump from the bottom step to the ground. She held her breath as he slipped on the mucky sidewalk, only exhaling as he righted himself, glancing up at her with an impish grin.

She pulled him to her, burying her face in the thick down of his hair, drawing in the scent of him, holding it in her lungs, feeling it seep into her blood, settle into her bones.

“Come on inside. It's freezing out here. You can sit in the back booth and do your homework and have some dinner. Then Carmen is going to take you home and stay with you until I get off,” she told him briskly, tugging him behind her as she returned to the welcome warmth of the diner.

“I thought you didn't have to work tonight,” Rafe stated sadly, tossing his bookbag into the far corner of the booth and sliding across the cracked red vinyl.

How do I explain that the heating bill's going to be high this month and we need the money?

“I got an extra shift at McShay's because someone called in sick. Besides, you love staying with Carmen. You can watch Home Improvement and then go to bed. Okay?” Natalia tried to keep her tone light, willing Rafe to understand why she had to work for the fourth straight night.

“I guess. I just wish you didn't have to work all the time.”

“So do I, sweetie. So do I. But one day, I won't have to. Someday we'll have a real house and a family and things won't be so hard. I promise.”

Someday.

III. Anymore

She had never wanted much: a safe, warm home for her son, a decent job, nothing more. Nothing to which she would have admitted in the crowded noise of Company, at least. That was, until now. Now she was going to have to do just that: stand amid the clank of dishes and the voices of friend and stranger alike and admit to herself that she wanted. That she wanted with a constant, hard ache in her stomach, like the one she'd had as a kid after a post-Halloween binge, the sugar of too many Tootsie Rolls and way too much Candy Corn lying like a stone in the center of her slightly distended tummy.

That ache had faded, sending her ten year old body plummeting in a sugar high sky dive to the hard ground. This ache though, this one never faded, never left her, even for an instant. This afternoon she had bent over a still figure on a hospital bed, fingers caressing, mind and body longing, and wondered if it was possible to die from the ache, to die from wanting.

And she had known, known as she fled the hospital room, cheeks flushed with equal parts heat and shame, that her path would lead her here, to the sheltered back entrance to Company. To break Frank's heart. The small jeweler's box in her pocket seemed to carry the weight of twenty years of expectations, of dreams she was supposed to want, of a life she was supposed to want.

But all she wanted was Olivia.

Which was why she was standing here in the sharp, biting wind of a March afternoon and gently pressing that box into the slightly moist palm of Frank Cooper's hand, the confused, wounded look on his face leaving him slack-jawed, the skin of his cheeks and jowls seeming to slide down like so much melted wax.

“But…I don't understand,” he murmured, and she wondered a trifle impatiently if he had always been this obtuse or if it was something she brought out in him, the self-admonishment that followed not quite as fierce as it once had been.

“I can't marry you, Frank.” She was trying to be kind, trying to soften the blow, the one that she knew would still leave him punch drunk and grasping for purchase. “I told you before…what happened between us…it shouldn't have happened, Frank. I was trying to comfort a friend and things got out of hand. I never meant for you to think it was anything more. It was a mistake and I am so sorry for that, for leading you on. But I can't marry you. You're a dear, sweet man, but I can't. I just can't.”

“But, I love you, Natalia.” Even to his own ears it had to sound false. It was impossible to imagine that he couldn't hear it, the neediness, the petulant whine of a child being told he couldn't have that new bike.

“Frank, you don't love me. You love the idea of me. Of some housewife who does the cooking and the cleaning and irons your shirts and greets you at the door with your slippers and a drink at the end of the day. That isn't me, Frank. That's never been me.”

“I don't think of you that way,” he began, cut off by the swift words that flew from her lips, colored by a trace of the bitter air that left a red stain on her tender cheeks.

“Yes, you do. I'm just a peg to fit in this hole in your life, to fill the space of the missing Cooper. But that's not who I am. I'm not a peg, Frank. I'm not some interchangeable part to fix the tear that Eleni left behind. I can't be her, Frank. I'm not Eleni.”

He hung his head then, a bow of defeat, of acknowledgement and she felt a wave of pity flood the space between them, the waters lapping at her feet. She knew if she stayed they would rise, inexorably creeping up her legs, washing over her chest, the guilt threatening to drown her. Over thirty years of living to please others had left her a poor swimmer and she knew that she had to leave before the flood began tugging at her, dragging her down.

“I'm so sorry, Frank. I never meant to hurt you. You've done so much for me and for Rafe. I hope that we can still be friends,” she told him softly, a gloved hand reaching out to tentatively brush along his leather clad arm. Not certain she could weather the reply, she forged on. “I need to go. I'll see you.”

She turned and fled, trying not to scurry as she slipped down the sidewalk to her car. The seat was cold against the backs of her legs, the chill seeping through the material of her pants, sending a shiver up her spine. Putting the car in gear, she carefully eased onto the road, the tires making a soft crunching sound as she made her way along the now familiar streets, streets that took her where they had always been leading her.

Towards the home she never knew she wanted and the family she never thought she'd have and the woman she never imagined she'd love. Towards Olivia.

IV. These Small Hours

Even her family had to admit, Natalia had been right. Despite nine hours spent slaving away in a hot kitchen, peeling potatoes, dicing carrots, washing endless pots and pans, it had all been worth it. Because right now, standing in the farmhouse living room, the mellow tones of Nat King Cole nearly drowned out by the laughter and conversations of the room's occupants, ninety hours of slicing and scrubbing would have seemed well worthwhile. For the first time since she was a teenager, Christmas was Christmas again.

A picture perfect Christmas, in fact. A soft snowfall coated the ground and the trees, turning the entire countryside into a print by Currier and Ives. A cozy fire crackled in the fireplace, while a gorgeous, lush Fraser fir filled the room with the scent of balsam and snow and long winter nights under the stars. Presents were scattered everywhere, enough to bring a broad, never-ending grin to Emma's sweet face. And now, a sumptuous meal was laid out on a long banquet table that stretched the length of the living room, a feast fit for royalty. Or a royal army at least, the table fairly groaning under the weight of it.

And there was a small army of them, so many that Natalia couldn't help but feel a warmth settle inside her at the faces arrayed about her: Olivia, Ava, Emma, Jeffrey and Reva and Colin. Philip and Beth. Josh. Doris and Ashlee. Blake and Clarissa. And most wondrous and amazing of all, Rafe was here, her sweet boy, after months of being unable to come to terms with her relationship with Olivia. Natalia still wasn't absolutely sure what had changed his mind, but she had never been one to question God's plans or His miracles.

At least not since she fell in love with Olivia Spencer.

“A decidedly motley crew, if there ever was one,” Olivia jokingly proclaimed, the teasing smile on her face not quite covering the glimmer of tears in her eyes, tears of happiness. Tears of astonished, disbelieving joy at the family and friends who had joined her and Natalia for their first Christmas together, as a couple. As a family. Natalia knew their mirror image glimmered in her own eyes.

“That's what you get when you start telling people, ‘Hey, Natalia's cooking Christmas dinner, you should come'. I don't know about the rest of you, but I definitely came for the food,” Doris laughed, finding a place at the table between Blake and Ashlee.

Glancing down the table, Natalia couldn't help but marvel at the difference just a year could make. This time last year, she had just bought the farmhouse and she and Olivia were trying to feel their way as they navigated their new living arrangements, not certain if two such disparate personalities could peacefully coexist in one house. And now, now it was clear to anyone who saw Olivia and Natalia that, without each other, they couldn't exist at all. Of that, Natalia was completely certain.

“Mama, can we eat now?” Emma demanded, her eyes fixed on the marshmallow topped sweet potato casserole placed strategically in front of her on the wide table.

“Yes, sweetie, as soon as we say the blessing,” Natalia answered her from her place at one end of the big table. Meeting Olivia's eyes at the other end, Natalia smiled.

“Olivia? Would you say the blessing?” Her face lit by an inner joy, Natalia looked beautiful. Nodding gently, Olivia began to speak.

“The world seems to be so filled with chaos and fear these days, but here tonight, in this room, we thank you for the blessings of these people, some bound together by blood, some by vows, some by simple affection and friendship. All bound by love. We thank you for the bounty of this feast, but even more for the joy and laughter that came in preparing it. We thank you for the wealth of presents under this tree, but most of all, we thank you for the inestimable gift of this family , all this family. Amen.”

As the amens faded into the silence of the room, Doris spoke.

“Okay, so who are you and what have you done with Olivia Spencer?”

“Shut up and eat, Wolfe,” Olivia rejoined, the smile on her face at odds with her words.

It wasn't until Ava leaned over to ask if anything was wrong that Natalia realized that she had barely touched the food on her plate. She was so absorbed in observing her family, listening to the laughter and the fond teasing, seeing the wide grin that lit Emma's face, Josh's head thrown back in a belly laugh, Ashlee's face a bright red at something Rafe had whispered in her ear, that the simple motion of lifting fork to mouth had been abandoned.

Glancing down the length of the table, she met Olivia's eyes. Every word that had passed between them in the past eighteen months; every argument, every endearment, every gesture and caress, every emotion-fraught glance seemed to crowd the air, pushing the world away on each side until there was nothing and no one else save the arched connection between them, an unbreakable tether in a broken world.

Natalia smiled, tears welling in her eyes and mouthed the only words that mattered, the ones she had said a thousand times before and would say another billion or so before she died, “I love you, Olivia. I love you.”

V. Comfort

The ground was hard and cold under her knees. The grass of the cemetery had long since given up the ghost, turning brown and brittle, patches of grayish-white snow hiding away beneath the shade of trees and along the edges of heavy granite markers. She brushed the few pieces of dried grass and dirt from the plaque, the suede of her gloves leaving a few streaks behind as she moved her fingers gently across the engraved letters, following the curve of vowels, the sharper edges of consonants.

She placed a pot of vibrantly colored flowers against the dark stone below the plaque, the yellow of daffodils and red of tulips almost painfully bright as she settled the ceramic pot on the sloping ground. Sitting back on her heels, she closed her eyes for a moment, a silent prayer winding through her mind, a sad smile touching full lips.

“So, I'm sorry I'm late. I bet you thought I wasn't coming, didn't you?” Natalia said, trying to make her voice as bright as the flowers and failing a little. “We had a false alarm trip to the hospital this morning. Emma thought she was in labor, but it was just a few Braxton Hicks contractions. Can you believe that Emma's almost thirty and about to be a mother? It doesn't seem possible, does it?

“And Ava's in London , supervising the opening of the new Beacon there. She's become the most amazing businesswoman, but then, that apple never did fall far from the tree, did it? She made Emma promise not to give birth before she gets home, so she can be there to see her new niece arrive, but I'm not sure that Marissa is going to be all that cooperative about when she puts in her appearance. As you know, Spencer women like to make an entrance.”

She laughed softly, the sound melding into the low moan of the late winter wind, floating out over the cemetery to disappear into the tree-lined horizon. Her legs were starting to ache, and she pushed herself up on her knees, swiveling her body to sink as gracefully as possible to the ground.

As graceful as a fifty-six year old woman can , she thought.

“Rafe's still in New York . He and Ashlee really love it there. The twins are going to be thirteen in July. God, they're so tall, like their mother. I can't believe I have grandsons who tower over me. Rafe loves his counseling job. He's so good with those kids and I think it helps, being able to tell them all the things that he went through, growing up without a father, getting into trouble, going to prison. He says the kids think he understands them, what they're going through. I'm so proud of him.

“It doesn't seem possible that they're all grown up, all my kids. That it's been so many years. Some days I feel so old.” Her voice trailed off, a pensive look on her face as the passing days scrolled through her mind, nearly two decades of joy and heartache, of tears and laughter, of life.

“Well, for what it's worth, you don't look old.” The voice was accompanied by the soft brush of cold fingers along her cheek, fingers that trailed into the fine hair along her temple, tangling in the now brown and gray locks.

Tilting her head back, Natalia met green eyes framed by laugh lines as Olivia grinned down at her. She watched as the older woman lowered herself gingerly to the frozen ground beside her, chuckling at the slight grimace that graced Olivia's lovely face.

“Talk about feeling old. You do know we're going to need help getting up, don't you?” Olivia laughed, her still shapely behind landing on the hard earth. “So, have you filled Gus in on all the gossip?”

“Most of it. I was telling him about Emma and the baby. Speaking of, I thought you were staying with her?” Natalia answered, automatically reaching over to take Olivia's bare hand between her glove-clad ones.

“Yeah, well, we decided that we'd had enough quality alone time and that I should leave,” Olivia said nonchalantly.

“What'd you say?” Natalia demanded, turning dark eyes on her spouse.

“I didn't say anything,” Olivia replied defensively.

“Olivia.”

“Okay, well, I may have suggested that the next time she has Jason call us at four in the morning to rush to the hospital, she might want to wait until her water breaks, at least,” Olivia muttered, turning her head in hopes that her words would be carried away on the cold March breeze.

“You're impossible.”

“It was four in the morning, Natalia. Four. That's all I'm saying. No granddaughter of mine is going to be putting in an appearance that early in the morning, and her mother ought to know it,” Olivia groused, having the grace to look a little ashamed.

“Now you see what I've been putting up with for the past twenty years, Gus?” Natalia laughed, shaking her head as Olivia stuck out her tongue.

“Did you tell him about Ava and the new hotel in London and Rafe's job and how freakin' tall the twins are?” Olivia asked innocently, not even trying to be subtle in her bid to change the subject.

“Yes, yes and yes. I told him all that.” Natalia grinned, her love for the woman at her side washing over her, as it always did, leaving her feeling off balance and profoundly happy. “I was just going to tell him about how Frankie the Third crashed the new police cruiser, but you can tell him if you want.”

“I should. I tell it better than you,” Olivia agreed, a wide grin splitting her face.

“No, you just find it more amusing than I do,” Natalia countered, sliding sideways to lean against Olivia's shoulder, snuggling in as an arm circled her back, pulling her closer.

“Aw, come on, Natalia. Frank and Blake's son takes his father's police car for a joyride and runs it into the Mayor's car in front of City Hall? In what universe would that not be funny?” Olivia chuckled, an expression of glee on her face. Tilting her head to the side and raising one hand to her ear, she said, “Listen, you can even hear Gus laughing.”

“Fine, fine. Tell him,” Natalia agreed, the warmth of Olivia's body tucked against hers, the lulling sound of Olivia's voice making her forget the hard ground beneath them, making her forget for a brief instant that the man they had come to visit, one they had both loved, one who had, in dying, given to both of them new life, couldn't really hear them. Or maybe he could.

Thank you Gus, for my life , Natalia thought, thank you for this amazing life.