ODDS OF LOVE - SEASON THIRTEEN

Episode 144

           Manassas, Virginia

Andrew Norland's four door beige sedan sat on the side of the road empty of any passenger with the driver's side door opened slightly.

On the passenger seat rested his cell phone which began to ring.

                ----------

          Hyattsville, Maryland

Glory furrowed her brow as she attempted to call her husband but got voicemail instead. She was missing him greatly and wished he was by her side right now or that she was with him. She didn't particularly care for being separated from the man she saw not just as a spouse but a confidant and a friend. Andrew , she thought to herself , where the hell were you?

" Andrew, please call me. I'm getting worried and from my texts so is Spencer. "

She sighed with worried lines creasing her already lined forehead as she hung up and turned back to her daughter Dodie who sat up in her hospital bed holding up a hand mirror and steadily applying the makeup to her face she had demanded her mother get her.

" Whose this Andrew person, Momma ? ," Dodie said coolly as she pursed her bright red lips in the reflected image in the mirror. " Does Daddy know about him? You know he doesn't like you talking to other men. And where is Daddy? Is he in Connecticut? When are we going back home again? "

Glory sighed again as she went back over to sit next to her daughter's bed. She had explained all of this to Dodie but it wouldn't sink in for some reason. The doctor said it was traumatic brain injury from strangling and the hanging attempt. Alfred thought his sister was faking it all. She didn't know what to believe. She knew her daughter could be overly dramatic at times but she was also a trained social worker. She had taken psychology classes in college and knew that the human brain was a mysterious thing to behold. With a certain amount of trauma anything could happen. Look at Richard's amnesia and even Winston Arnett's speech issues. And that poor boy Jamal Duncan........

" I told you, Dodie , Andrew is my husband. Your stepfather. He owns a bookstore in Pennsylvania but is retired and we live in Maryland now. Well we're not really retired. He plays the piano at his son in law's restaurant and I cook there. At least I once did. "

And she would again, she thought as she idly touched her headscarf. Thank God for the remission. She wasn't her mother. No. She was going to live.

Dodie glanced at her mother with a bit of disgust twisting her lips. " I don't believe any of that. Anymore than I believe Daddy is dead now or that Alfred is in a relationship of any kind. And , why are you wearing that hideous scarf ? It's so middle class really. Daddy will be so embarrassed. "

Glory was about to respond with the fact that she didn't care what the very dead Franco Giadello would have thought of her appearance just as her phone rang. Her heart warmed as she thought that it was Andrew but disappointment entered her when she saw it was Faith Lane instead.

" Hello? "

Faith said abruptly," Have you heard from Andrew lately? I've been trying to reach him all morning and he's not answering. That's not like him. Where the hell is he? "