Facts Of Life: Only The Young

Chapter 9

IX

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn

Isn't that the way?
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know
How to win

Half my life's in books' written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it's true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away

Yeah, sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away

Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true

Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on, ah

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Dream On Aerosmith

Monica Warner had bought a stately, but not a terribly large home near White Plains. It still had four bedrooms, enough for guests and if her grandkids were ever visiting, with a nice backyard which Richard, Dwight, and Charlie had already put in a playground for said grandkids. It would suit her just right.

At the house warming, Monica spent as much time with little Gloria as she possibly could. She wasn't trying to prove anything to herself or to Jo, but she was smitten with the little girl, who had the same color hair and eyes as her mother. She was simply adorable. It had come as a shock to her that she felt no different about Gloria than she did about DC.

Monica Warner had spent a lot of time contemplating life since the day she was informed that Blair had been in a terrible car accident. The thought of losing her daughter and her, at the time, only grandchild had frightened her as nothing every had in her existence. When she had been flying from France to New York on that fateful day, she wanted to be angry at someone for what had happened to Blair and David, and the first choice of a target would have been Jo Polniaczek.

But that thought went up in smoke when she entered Blair's room, and saw Jo watching that recording of she and Blair, and the desolation in the woman's voice as she kept vigil over Blair.

Everything she had ever thought about the tough woman from The Bronx had been forever pulverized in that stark moment.

She had not only seen Jo in a different light, but her parents, Rose and Charlie, in a new light as well. She had called them immediately after Blair informed her that they had been married, and had taken them both out to dinner to celebrate. They were very good people. Hard-scrabbled, perhaps, from a life that had not come easy, but Monica had learned that they were better than most people she had ever known.

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Blair and Jo were out to dinner one night with their children at a local pizza place that they frequented. Gloria was in her car seat next to her Mama Jo, who would pick her up now and then, even bottle feeding the little girl once in a while. David was between both his Mama's. Jo had been fiddling with a cranky Gloria for a while after they ordered their food.