by Marsh Brooks
We have reached out to the medical staff of the clinic who have denied the story. But Ms. Stephanie Marshall, the late actor's sister, has confirmed to us that she was one of the nurses on staff the night when the pregnancy was terminated.
Our efforts to interview Ms. Marshall on the story have been unsuccessful. Ms. Marshall however, through her publicist, denied that these events ever took place, and has scheduled a press conference this week to address what Ms. Marshall claims to be the false allegations contained in our story.
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Phil didn't return to his office. Instead, he went straight home. He still couldn't believe that Stacy had told him that she had miscarried when she had purposefully aborted their baby to get a part in a movie. How could he have missed the signs? Even Jeremy tried to warn him. Instead, he was rude to Isabel, the woman he really loved, and rejected her love to be with Stacy because he felt guilty for her miscarriage, which was a lie. Phil felt that he was in a bad dream. He then went to the gym and lifted some weights hoping to ease the pain that he felt.
When he returned home, the pain didn't lessen. He took a quick shower and went to bed. It was still early afternoon and he didn't care. He just wanted to sleep and forget. He could hear the phone ring, but didn't look or pickup. His therapy was almost over and he knew that he would most likely never see Isabel again. Even if he saw her, he was sure that Isabel would never talk to him again, especially after the awful way that he treated her. He was at a loss. He felt like he was on a boat in the middle of nowhere without a compass or any equipment to guide him. He felt that he was lost.
He didn't go to work the next day, and instead, he spent the whole morning in bed, in despair. When he left home to go to the therapy session, he was still feeling depressed about the whole situation. Everything, including the Center, the flowers, the bench, the lake, the ducklings, was going to remind him of the love he lost, of Isabel. He didn’t exercise long that day at the Center. He wasn't in the mood. Instead, he went and sat on the bench where everything started. The ducklings were there and somehow, they seemed bigger and better swimmers. They seemed to have blossomed in just a couple of weeks. He felt as if they were looking at him and asking, how he had managed to screw things up during the same period.
Phil sat there for about an hour. As he was deciding whether to leave, Rebecca came and sat down next to him on the bench.
“Aren't you supposed to be working?” Phil asked.
“I'm on break. By the way, I heard about Stacy and the baby,” Rebecca said.
“You saw the news too?” Phil asked.
“Yes, I'm sorry.”
“That weekend in the Keys, she made me believe she had miscarried,” Phil said. He sounded as if he wasn't there, as if he was in a fog.
Rebecca sat there for one moment and didn't respond. Then she said, “I heard you have only a few therapy sessions left.”
“Yes it's true,” Phil confirmed.
“Will you be coming back here?” Rebecca asked.
“I doubt it,” Phil forced a smile, “Hospitals and clinics are not my thing.”
“So what are you going to do about my sister?” Rebecca asked.
“What can I do? I already screwed up. I'm not sure she would even want to talk to me.”
“How do you know if you don't try? Besides, it would be nice for all of us to finish the Cuban dinner we had started. Don't you think?” Rebecca said. She then got up and walked away, not waiting for Phil's response.
##
The bar was almost deserted. Few customers were present when the deep voice announced the beginning of the evening news. Rays of blue and yellow, caused by the failing cathode-ray tube of the old television set on the bar counter, colored the anchor's face as if it was a science fiction movie.
“...And now to the story that has riveted the movie industry..... The abortion provider that helped Ms. Marshall terminate her pregnancy..........”
As the anchor was reading the teleprompter, further back, deep in one corner of the dark bar, a young blond woman sat and watched the anchor repeating the story about Stacy's abortion. She didn't look like she belonged there. On the table in front of her was a dirty glass of dark draft beer that had not been touched. The woman then got up and left a tip on the table and walked out.
Beyond the bar's parking lot and the street fronting the bar, the waves were crashing on the seashore. The young woman then went into her car in the parking lot, picked up a flowery vase, and then walked across the street toward the beach. There she opened and gently tilted the vase. A grayish powder came out and was immediately swept up by the light eastward wind, carrying the ash far across the water.
“Good bye, big brother,” Stephanie said. “I know you didn't want me to do it. Forgive me. I loved you and I couldn't let her get away with it.”
As soon as the ashes disappeared into the Key West horizon, the wind picked up, carrying what appeared to Stephanie to be a soft male voice. She could have been wrong. But Stephanie thought she heard Andy say, “I love you too, little sis.”
##
The next morning, Isabel was sitting on the bench after her morning therapy session. She had spent over three hours exercising, and after taking a long, hot shower, she was back in front of the lake.
The night before, Rebecca had told her the news about Phil and Stacy, and she had prayed that Phil would be OK. She wanted to call Phil but she didn't know if it was a good idea. She realized that it was a mistake to ever consider marrying Richard when she was deeply in love with Phil. But this realization had come too late. She had lost Phil. She wondered if Phil could ever forgive her.
She didn't blame Phil for not wanting to take her back after the episode with Richard. But she hated to know that Phil was going through such a difficult period and in pain.
“It's very hard to get in touch with you,” the familiar voice said, the voice that she dreamed of hearing every night before she went to bed, and every morning when she woke up. She turned and her heart jumped as Phil came and sat down next to her.
“I heard what happened. I’m sorry,” Isabel said.
“Actually, it was my fault. I should have never acted the way I did with you,” Phil said.
“Both of us made mistakes,” Isabel said.
Then Phil asked, “Tell me Isabel, if someone loves you but has screwed up badly, what should he do to get you back?”
Isabel turned and looked at him with those eyes, the tender eyes that melted his heart when they first met.
Isabel couldn’t believe that her love, the man of her dreams, was asking her for a second chance. She thought she was the one who had screwed up. Then she heard herself say, “That person should not be married, he should never go to the Keys again without me, and finally, he should like ducklings.”
Phil then gently wrapped his arms around Isabel. Their first kiss had never felt so right.
Epilogue
Back in California, Stacy was lying by the pool of an exclusive hotel, waiting for a press conference that would soon take place. At the press conference, Stacy would be escorted by two experts.
The first expert was the doctor at the abortion clinic. He was going to say that he was the one who had made the determination that the abortion was medically necessary, and that continuing the pregnancy would have ended the lives of both Stacy and the baby.
The second was a handwriting expert. He was going to say that he had analyzed Andy Marshall's signature from the letter that was published by the paper, and determined it to be a fake.
Then it would be Stacy's turn to put on a gut-wrenching performance on how devastated she was when the doctor told her that she needed to have the abortion in order to survive.
Thinking about Phil and Isabel, Stacy realized that Isabel had won the battle. However, love is not a battle. Love is a war with many battles, and one has to be patient.
Then she thought about the letter that was printed in the paper. Something didn’t feel right to her. She knew that A
ndy didn’t type or use a computer. Plus it didn’t make sense that there would be a letter addressed to her. Why couldn’t Andy just talk to the press before he died? It would have carried more weight. Someone was behind this. Then she remembered the paper talking about Andy’s sister.
“Wherever you are dear ex-sister-in-law, watch your back. You’ll pay for this,” Stacy said to herself, drawing already in her mind her plan for revenge.
Looking at her watch, Stacy then got up. She had already wired the money that the experts requested for the statements that her publicist had written for them. Now she needed to resume practice for the press conference.
She was frankly tired of crying and repeating her lines in front of the mirror. But she knew she didn't have a choice if she wanted to give a good performance at the press conference. After all, her motto had always been about the 5 “P”, which was short for Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Then Stacy smiled. She was ready to shine again.
For more information about Marsh Books, and the author’s next novel, please visit marshbooks.com.