Angie tells Tad she has to talk to him—can she come in? Jesse hides and listens as Tad leads her into the foyer, and Angie says she needs his help. Tad agrees, she’s got it, and Angie says it’s Jesse. Frankie still believes that he saw Jesse in his room, and she thinks that she saw him at the cemetery. Tad knows, his father called him from the hospital. Angie goes on that of course she knows it couldn’t be him. It had to be a figment of her imagination, just her wanting him so badly. Tad assures her if she wants anything, if he can do anything, he will. Angie asks, “Can you? Can you help me find a way to let Jesse go?” Tad says to believe him, more than anything, he wishes he could tell her Jesse is still alive. Angie asks him to be honest with her. Did he actually consider the possibility? Jesse listens intently as Tad wonders why she would ask him that? The truth is, he did consider it for about a minute, but that was only because of Dixie. He thought she was dead for the longest time, and then she wasn’t. “What I would give if that could be true for Jesse,” Angie sighs. It’s like she can feel him! Tad is sorry, for all of it. He’s so sorry. Angie tells him it’s not his fault, but Tad says he sure as hell doesn’t feel like he’s helping her any. Krystal comes home, pleased to see Angie, and Tad explains that Angie felt like a little company. Asked if her son is okay, Angie smiles as she says Frankie is fine. “But you’re not?” Krystal asks. Angie says she’s better now. She adds that it’s late, and she should get going. Krystal tells her to wait. She knows she doesn’t know her that well, but she knows that what she went through as a mother is just hell. She’s been through it, too. She almost lost a child, and she knows what that can do to you, “I’m a good listener.” Angie admits, “It’s Frankie’s dad, Jesse. Yeah, I’ve been missing him.” Jesse grimaces when Krystal suggests Angie come in and sit down, and tell her all about him. It can help sometimes to remember.
“Me and Jesse?” Angie sighs, “Our story…” She doesn’t know where to begin. Krystal suggests Day One, first eye lock, but Tad says Angie’s been through a lot today. Maybe she’s a little worn out. Ignoring him, Krystal asks, “So, when, where and how did you meet your Romeo?” Angie tells her they were in high school. Jesse’s mom had died, and he’d moved here from Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle. Asked if it was love at first sight, Angie laughs that she can’t say it was. She was the polite, proper, perfect daughter of a lawyer, and Jesse was loud and rude and so annoying! Tad thinks it was probably an act, and Angie sighs that he’d had a tough start. He had this whole riff on it, and he put that riff on her parents the first time she brought him home to dinner. It was such a disaster! She remembers her mother asking Jesse if he had a job, and her displeasure at learning he bussed tables at Foxy’s. Needless to say, Jesse didn’t win over her parents, but she was already hooked on the guy. Tad calls it a classic, the good girl and bad boy, but Angie says no, not bad. He was gentle and so protective of her. She tells Krystal about the night he proposed, suggesting they cross over the state line to Elmwood where a Justice of the Peace would marry them. Jesse also remembers as Angie tells Krystal how she’d protested that it was such a big step, but had finally agreed. The Justice of the Peace kept them waiting for what seemed like an eternity and she was a nervous wreck, and she took it out on the poor daffodils, her wedding bouquet. She had protested that she didn’t think he should have taken them from the park, but Jesse insisted he didn’t steal them, he borrowed them. When he gave her a ring, she said he shouldn’t have, but Jesse told her it was his mom’s. She had told the JP she was sure she wanted to marry him, more than anything, and they were pronounced man and wife. Back at their motel room she’d marveled, “Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Hubbard.” She tells Krystal they had done it. They were in high school, and they were married. They kept it a secret for a long time, too long, and it hurt them bad. She remembers telling Jesse she’d given it a lot of serious thought, and decided the best thing was for them to get a divorce. She got the divorce, but it wasn’t over. Krystal nods, of course not. She and Jesse got that “forever” stamp the moment they met. Angie goes on that she didn’t tell Jesse when she got pregnant. She assumed that he didn’t want children, but she was so wrong. She flashes back to her joy at Frankie’s birth, and tells Krystal she made a terrible mistake, and she’d given up their child and believed they’d never get him back. She relates Jesse’s anger, how he’d insisted no one was going to adopt his son—no one was going to take his baby away from him! Jesse never gave up. Tad agrees that was Jesse all over. Once he made up his mind about something, there wasn’t a soul alive who could change it. He leaves the room for a moment to check on something, and Angie tells Krystal that Jesse searched and searched until he found their little Frankie and they got him back. Finally they were a family, and they made it official. They had their share of good and bad times after that, but they always loved each other, no matter what, and then she lost him. Krystal says Tad told her that he died trying to save someone else. Angie nods, and when she lost him, it seemed so… It still seems so wrong, and she can’t make peace with it, “And I don’t think I ever will.”
Click "Next" for more.
Recap Calendar