Henry, Jo, and Hanson left Reece's office with her instructions to release Zoe. Jo asked Henry what he planned to do next because she could see the wheels turning in his head.

"I'm going to have a talk with Maureen," he replied. Her forlorn statement came back to him.

"Guess I just didn't want to be alone," a somber Maureen admitted. "Like I am now."

"I think she might be persuaded not to be alone anymore," he added.

vvvv

Abe's Antiques, the next day, mid-afternoon ...

Abe eased down onto the settee in the living area with Fawn's and Henry's help. "Whew! Taking those stairs again took more out of me than I thought it would." He grinned up at them as if to assure them that he was fine. "This is what a few days of being lazy costs."

"Abe, you were shot and had to recuperate in the hospital," Fawn chided him. "And you're going to finish recuperating here," she firmly added. "Leave dinner to me." She pecked him on the cheek and patted Henry's arm before leaving them and entering the kitchen. Henry smiled at her and sat down next to his son.

"We're a couple of lucky guys," Abe told his father, his gaze following Fawn as she moved through the kitchen gathering all of the cooking tools and food items needed to produce a delicious meal.

"She seems to know her way around our kitchen very well," Henry noted with a sly grin, sliding his eyes over to Abe.

"Eh ... well ... yeah," Abe replied, chuckling. "She's been here before when ... lots of times! Why are you getting on me about this? Jo's been here lots of times, too," he pointed out.

"Yes, she has," Henry agreed. "And ... she knows." He tilted his head toward his son with his eyebrows raised. "When are you going to tell Fawn about me and our true relationship to each other?"

Abe's chest rose and fell as he lowered his eyes to his hands and his smile faltered. "You're enjoying this, turning the tables on me, aren't you?" Henry thought for a moment and grinned his reply, nodding.

"Guess I'm all big and brave tellin' somebody else to fess up." He looked apologetically at his father. "Now I know how you must have felt. How scared you must have been to tell Jo. Sorry, Dad." He was careful to whisper the patriarchal term so Fawn wouldn't hear it. "But I'll, I'll tell her. Soon. Don't want this to come between us like it did with ... "

"You and Maureen," Henry finished for him. Abe nodded. "Well, if it helps, I'm certain that Fawn will be believing and accepting."

Abe flashed a grin at him but quickly dropped it. "It doesn't help," he deadpanned. Henry chuckled and patted his shoulder. After a few moments, Abe asked how Maureen was doing.

"She's handling things quite well, considering." He went on to tell him how Maureen took the news of Zoe's erroneous belief that she was her granddaughter.

"Why would Frank go to such lengths?" Maureen asked, disgusted and astonished at hearing more of her former employee's deviousness.

"Perhaps he thought that your grief over losing your husband, Edoardo, so soon, would lead you to - "

" - wanting to raise his love child?!" she loudly interrupted him.

Henry pursed his lips and shook his head. "His plan appeared to make sense to others," he informed her. "It included the two of you becoming man and wife - "

Maureen interrupted again, this time with loud laughter. "This - whole thing sounds so utterly bizarre. He must have been, must BE totally mad."

"Your marriages to ... others got in his way. He was looking for the right opportunity to approach you but the longer he delayed, the more the opportunity evaded him," Henry said. "At least, that's what I believe happened."

She took a sip of her lemon and honey water and examined the glass. "Wish this could be a little stronger. Unfortunately, I gave up hard liquor years ago. Only an occasional glance of wine." She looked at Henry again and asked, "How deeply is Zoe involved in this?"

"I believe that the only way in which she is involved is that she appears to be as much a victim of his lustful conspirings as you and any of his other victims were." He explained further about how Frank and Edoardo, Jr.'s real birth mother had conspired to present the boy as Edoardo's and her offspring.

"I also believe he intended to blackmail you into marrying him," Henry said matter-of-factly. "And once married, the birth mother would have become expendable. She had already provided your name for the birth certificate. All he needed was to threaten you with exposure as being the boy's mother, which would have been disappointing to your fans and your record company at the time; ruining your fresh-faced, innocent image."

"Eddie and I were married in secret. Knowledge of that alone could have ruined my career," she said. "When my parents signed the contract with the record company in 1962, my age was pushed back three years. Our fans believed that I was only 12 when I was really 15. By 1966, I was 19 but to the public, I was still a school girl of 16." She sighed and turned to face him again, a look of melancholy on her face. "In those days, our fans were not as sophisticated or forgiving as they are today."

"Would you have welcomed the boy into your life?" Henry asked.

"I ... I don't know," she replied uncertainly. "My grief and loneliness just might have made me do that. Without the public's knowledge, mind you," she added. "Then again, I was 19 years old. Barely mature enough in my own mind to have been responsible for my own life let alone anyone else's."

"Zoe truly believes that you are her grandmother," Henry told her, pressing the point. "She has a younger brother but he has a different father and his birth certificate reflects that." He studied her for a moment and as difficult as it was, he continued. "Would it be so terrible to at least meet with Zoe and maybe the two of you could ... find some common ground on which to build some kind of relationship? It would break her heart to know that Frank and her real grandmother's family had lied to her all her life. And you wouldn't have to be ... alone any longer."

"A relationship that would be built on a lie," she pointedly told him. "I don't see how that's possible." She turned away from him. "I've already been through that." With Abe, is what she didn't say but what Henry heard anyway.

Abe's voice snapped him back to the present. "Hmmm. Well, you gave it your best shot. Will Jo be joining us for dinner tonight?"

"No," Henry replied. "Not tonight. You and Fawn enjoy the rest of the day and evening together. Jo and I have a dinner date after work." He stood up to leave but stopped suddenly, reaching into his coat pocket. "Oh. I almost forgot." He handed Abe two tickets.

"What are these?" he asked.

"A gift ... from Ms. Delacroix," Henry replied with a broad smile and a slight bow. "Front row seats to her next performance at the Rochester Auditorium Theatre. We're all invited." Henry then bid goodbye to his son and to Fawn. Assured that Abe was in good hands, he then left the shop and returned to the morgue.

That evening, Henry and Jo enjoyed a pleasant dinner at the Barclay Hotel restaurant. They both agreed that the outing was well worth it based on the restaurant's great ambiance and meal presentations. Later on at her house, they discussed attending Maureen's upcoming performance.

"She called it a sort of pre-show," Henry told her. "To kick off her world tour."

"Will it be taped and aired later?" Jo asked, clearly excited.

"Possibly," he replied. "At any rate, I'm sure we'll all have a benjo." He chuckled at the confused look on her face.

"American English!" Jo told him, grabbing his shirt collar and jerking his face closer to hers while he laughed.

"A riotous holiday," he explained, laughing and spreading his arms out. "A noisy day in the streets."

"That's really cute what you've started to do lately," she said, pecking him on the lips. "But these lips speak only Spanglish and American English."

His gaze slowly lowered to her lips, one side of his mouth edging up into that lopsided grin of his. "Only those two languages?" he teasingly asked, lowering the register of his voice. "Not ... the language of love?" She shook her head and shrugged, her own smile pushing her cheeks out. "Well, if you would allow me," he said, pulling her closer, "I would be very happy to teach you."

"Have to warn you," Jo told him with an exaggerated pout as she ran her fingers over the lopsided part of his scruff. "There's no telling how many lessons I'll need."

"Well ... I've got time," he whispered to her right before their lips locked in a crushing kiss.

vvvv

Two weeks later, Maureen took center stage at the beautiful auditorium in Rochester, New York. It was a classic stage set up, no frills but a full band: bass, guitar, drums, piano, percussion, drums, and saxophone. A screen in the background changed throughout the performance with different light patterns. As the last living member of the girl group the Candy Canes, she showcased her talent and beauty backed up by two granddaughters and a nephew of her deceased older sisters, Nannette and Arlene. Through several wardrobe changes that included, among others, a black leather jumpsuit covered in rhinestones and a halter-top white dress with a sequined bodice, she took the audience on a walk down memory lane with the group's early hits from the 1960s. Then into the 1970s during her solo career.

A resurgence of popularity in the 1990s and one of her solo hits, "True to Me", remade by a popular girl group in 2008, accounted for the audience's makeup of grade schoolers through baby boomers. The entire audience jumped to its feet as the diva made her entrance wearing a bright green sequin gown with a green chiffon overcoat and the band went right into "Yesterday and More," her solo hit at the end of the 70s.

For the next memory, Ms. Delacroix asked the crowd, "Do you remember this song?!" As the band played, the audience screamed and rocked to "Love Is the Name of the Game," one of her top ten solo hits. She followed with "Starlight, Starbrite", a Candy Cane hit near the end of their run. Her cover of a Petula Clark song about pleading with her lover not to sleep in the subway station after they'd argued, was directed to Abe. Her eye contact with him as she introduced the song, left no doubts for him or his companions - unbeknownst to any others on or off stage - that she was using the song to share one aspect of their past relationship with each other. At the song's end, she smiled broadly, remembrance glistening in her eyes, and blew him a kiss before bowing.

The single, "Bring It Back", which had garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, got couples on their feet, dancing in the aisles. The Diva then dropped the lime green overcoat she was wearing and she sparkled as if covered in pixie dust. The crowd roared. Diva Maureen rode the song out as she shined the light on the audience.

"I can see you back there! Can you hear me?" she asked, and the crowd went wild! As the song ended, she just stood at center stage, embracing her imperial presence as the crowd screamed.

She left the stage as the song ended, but returned to introduce her band and background singers, each taking a short solo upon introduction, showcasing the phenomenal talent of her stage team. She also introduced a special guest, Zoe Tulane, referring to her as an "almost" granddaughter.

"And for those of you unfamiliar with the story," she announced, "you'll just have to buy the book!" She bowed and then exchanged hugs with a blushing Zoe.

She attempted to hold onto Zoe's hand while she performed "I Will Survive" but Zoe gently pryed their hands loose from each other and left the stage to the Diva. It was quite an appropriate ending to her show and a testament to a lifelong singing career. Then Diva Maureen and her band exited the stage expeditiously.

"She's still got it!" someone behind the seated Team Morgan concurred. "What a show!" someone to their left declared. A multitude of like concurrences rang out from the departing crowd. Before leaving themselves, Henry reminded Abe that their free tickets included a backstage pass. Abe looked at the stage and back at Fawn.

"Nah," he replied, offering his crooked arm to Fawn. "She has the friends she needs now (Zoe), and I, for one, am very happy with mine."

Notes:

Had to come back in to make a minor correction. When Jo tells Henry "English English!", I realized she should have been saying, "American English!" (see what these typing fingers can do to me?). Anyway, I also realized that Maureen is going to write a book on her recent experiences but that would also encompass a great deal of her past life. Including her marriages and especially her marriage to Abe. Oy vey!

Thank you all for riding along with me again. Hope you enjoyed it. Oh, and Abe eventually does let Fawn in but she surprises him by admitting that she had long suspected. Just as Henry had predicted, though, she is very accepting and fits in quite well with Team Morgan. Their secret is safe with her.

Zoe and Maureen do develop a strong friendship even after she finds out that Maureen is not her grandmother and spend time together whenever the Diva is in town. Since Zoe never knew her grandfather, Edoardo, Maureen helps fill in some of the holes in her family history.

And eventually Hanson, Reece, and Lucas are "let in" on Henry's secret of being an Immortal and Abe being his son after Lucas, while researching some medical history on another case, pulled up irrefutable and incontrovertible evidence of Henry having been an attending physician to some of the survivors of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

Information on Victorian slang terms found at
/article/53529/56-delightful-victorian-slang-terms-you-should-be-using
Maureen's stage show was borrowed heavily from an article describing one of Diana Ross' performances (Diana Ross delivers a performance worthy of a diva supreme) Written by Robin Reese, Special to OnMilwaukee. Published July 15, 2017 at 2:56 a.m.

Reference to "Don't Sleep in the Subway" written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent and recorded by Petula Clark, for whom it was an April 1967 single release. Also, "I Will Survive". A hit song first performed by American singer Gloria Gaynor, released in October 1978. It was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. The other song titles were made up by me.