Jane tugged critically at the too-expensive dress. "Too damn short..." She muttered under her breath, trying to shuffle the fabric further towards her knees. As she straightened back up the dress rode defiantly back up her thighs. She closed her eyes, let out an exasperated sigh and flopped backwards onto her bed. Lying amongst the rejected outfits, she listened to the familiar voices in the next room. Angela was quietly talking Helena into getting dressed.
"Helena, those aren't shoes for the park." Jane glanced up from her cup of coffee and spat her mouthful back into the cup. Maura had barely looked up from her newspaper at their dark haired, brown eyed five year old before stating the obvious. Helena stood in the door way, hands on her hips, obviously in disagreement with her mother. She was wearing silver glitter leggings leftover from Halloween, a pink and purple tutu salvaged from her dress up box, a Red Sox jersey and one of her blonde mothers old labcoats. On her tiny pudgy feet were her tap shoes. "Those aren't even your shoes from this year. They must be pinching your feet." Commented Maura, flicking the page nonchalantly.
Helena looked down at her shoes, considering for a moment. Jane darted forward and scooped up her daughter amidst a fit of shrieks and giggles. "'Lena pretty!" shouted the tiny Rizzoli-Isles. Jane stood her daughter on a kitchen chair and started removing some of the more impractical items of clothes. "You sure are!" laughed Jane, slipping the tutu off her daughter's legs. "But do you want to get sand all over your pretty skirt?" Helena hugged her tutu to her chest. "No!" Jane smiled and crouched to unbuckle Helena's shoes. "Do you think you can run fast enough to catch TJ in shoes that hurt?" Helena looked down at the red marks her shoe straps had left across the tops of her feet. "No…" she said thoughtfully. Jane slowly slipped the silver leggings off and folded them over her arm. "Wouldn't Uncle Frankie be able to find you if your legs sparkle?"
Helena looked up at her mother and smiled. "He'd find me!" With that, she jumped off the chair and raced to her room. "JEANS AND SNEAKERS!" Jane called after her. She looked back at Maura, who was smiling over the top of her paper. They both yelled at the same time "AND SOCKS!" before collapsing into laughter. Jane reached forward to kiss her wife's head, reaching down to rub her swelling stomach as she did. "I can't wait to have one again who doesn't want to dress themselves." Murmured Jane into Maura's hair. "I can barely dress myself!" laughed Maura, lurching to her feet and following her wife out of the room.
Angela's face appeared at the doorway. "Lena is ready honey. You ready to go?" Jane stood again, slightly unsteady in her heels. "Yeah Ma, just give me one minute." Angela smiled gently. "You look gorgeous honey." "Thanks Ma." Murmured Jane, reaching into the bassinette to scoop up her sleeping son. "Maur got this for me, you know I can't pick a dress out to save my life." Bouncing gently across the room she transferred Michael into her mothers outstretched arms. His blonde lashes fluttered in his sleep as he resettled. Angela grinned at her sleeping grandson. "Little man is getting so big now!"
Jane smiled. "I know. Two weeks old today." She whispered, not willing to wake her son for anything.
"Maur? Lena? I'm home!" Jane kicked off her boots and tossed her badge onto the hall table. "Six weeks of nothing but me!" She called out jokingly, wandering towards the dark kitchen. Flicking on the light, she opened the fridge and started poking around for beer. "Feet on the coffee table, takeout containers all over the place, clothes NOT in the hamper –" Jane shut the door of the fridge and dropped the beer she was holding. Helena stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Jane and Maura's bedroom, brown eyes wide. "Mama fall down…" she said softly.
"Come on baby, breathe. Please baby BREATHE." Jane fought back the tears as she sat waiting for the ambulance. Her arms were screaming. She counted to herself as she alternated pumping her arms against Maura's chest and blowing panicked breaths into her mouth. "Helena, honey, I need you to turn on the light."
"Mama is sleeping." Came her daughter's quiet voice. It sounded off, wrong. A monotone instead of sing song.
"No baby, mama is hurt, I need you to turn on the light." Jane wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve frantically.
"Mama is sleeping." Came her voice again.
"HELENA TURN ON THE LIGHT!" screamed Jane, losing all composure.
Helena walked painfully slowly towards the light switch and turned it on. In her panic, Jane had never noticed. She had never noticed the wet floor, the liquid slowly soaking into her pants. With every pump of her hands more blood rushed from Maura. Jane frantically checked for a wound, looking for where to put pressure, where to stop the bleeding.
There was no wound. The blood was coming from Maura, from her very core. Jane reached for the towel that had fallen from the laundry basket next to Maura. She could hear the sirens, she knew help was coming. She shoved the towel roughly between Maura's thighs, trying to stop the blood from spreading further. Pump, pump, pump, breathe. The towel was soaked through in an instant.
"Baby cold."
"Get a jacket sweetie, mommy is busy." Panted Jane. She HAD to have a place in the suburbs. Somewhere quiet for Helena to grow up. Too far, she thought to herself. Too far for help to come.
"Baby cold. Lena cuddle."
The ambulance officers came pounding through the hallway, followed closely by Vince and Angela. "JANIE!" screamed Angela, looking for her daughter. "MA!" Jane choked out before the sobs finally overcame her. She remembered stuttering answers to the questions the paramedics asked her; how long she had been doing CPR(forty two minutes), how many weeks pregnant she was (thirty nine), blood type (A positive). She heard a paramedic ask Helena when Maura had fallen. Her sobs came harder when Helena replied "No lunch. Lena hungry." Maura had been lying there for hours, since this morning.
"Baby cold." Angela scooped up Helena, trying to speak calmly that they would go get her a blanket. "NO! BABY COLD. LENA DO IT!" She screamed, kicking as hard as her tiny legs would allow. Squirming out of Angela's grip she raced to the laundry basket and pulled away a Red Sox shirt that was sitting on top.
Startled by the sudden light and sound, Michael Vincent Rizzoli-Isles started to cry.
Jane stared out at the sea of faces before her. In her numb state of mind, she registered Hope and Constance in the second row, their hands locked together as tightly as they could. Cailin blankly looked at Jane, her eyes hollow above bags too deep for her age. She saw Vince and Kiki sitting at the end of the pew in the front row. Kiki in black clothes with her usually wild hair smoothed and scraped into a somber bun was almost funny to Jane. Maura would have found something lovely to say to her. Her brothers and TJ sat next to Angela, and there was a blank space where Jane had been sitting.
On Angela's other side, her legs not yet long enough for even her toes to touch the ground, sat Helena.
"She shouldn't be here." Whispered Jane, realising too late she had said the words aloud. She suddenly knew what to say. The eulogy she had agonised over lay forgotten in front of her.
"Helena shouldn't be here. None of us should be." Continued Jane. "They say funerals are the way they are for us to say goodbye to someone we love. They're the way they are so we can remember them, together. I could stand up here and tell you a thousand memories I have of Maura. Of the kind, sweet, considerate, wildly intelligent person that she was. I could tell you about how we met, about how we fell in love, about how I completely screwed my proposal and she ended up finding the ring on her own while she was washing my pants."
A wave of soft laughter rippled through the church.
"I could tell you that she looked like an angel come to Earth the day she walked down the aisle towards me. I could tell you that even though she was the most scientific person I knew, she looked at me one morning when we were trying for a baby and told me I was pregnant. As usual, she was right."
Another wave of laughter.
"I could tell you that she held my hand the entire time I was bringing our daughter into the world. I could tell you that she was the only person Helena would go to sleep for in the first six months. I could tell you she taught our daughter to walk and talk, and I'm almost certain that Dora the Explorer didn't teach her how to tell me 'no more doughnuts' in Spanish."
Jane looked out at the crowd and saw thin smiles on almost every face she saw.
"I could tell you all these things, and about a million more. I will remember every detail, every smile, every word she ever said to me. I will remember the smell of her hair for the rest of my days. She was the kind of person that is impossible to forget. I am sure that all of you are now remembering things about her that you will carry forever, in your hearts next to the ache that comes with knowing she's gone."
Jane saw Cailin's eyes well over as she touched her stomach absentmindedly.
"I am glad that we have come here today, to remember her. I am glad that I could share some of my memories, and to help you remember some of yours. But in all honesty, we should not be here. We should not be saying goodbye to a wife, a mother, a daughter, a colleague, a friend. This isn't fair, and no one will ever be able to tell me otherwise. I will carry guilt and anger for the rest of my days, and I hate that. That was the opposite of Maura."
Jane exhaled heavily, trying very hard not to glance towards the open casket where her wife lay.
"Maura brought joy into every life she touched. Maura raised a beautiful daughter, and with her last strength brought a gorgeous son into the world. Maura would stand here and quote beautiful poems. She would remember the name for every face in this church. She would have us all leaving here grieving but heading towards acceptance. She was truly the sun, and I can honestly tell you that with her gone, I am struggling to find the light in my life."
Jane looked down her now useless speech.
"I am asking you to please, never forget. Never forget the sunshine that was Maura Rizzoli-Isles. Never forget the warm balance she brought to everyone who knew her. Please remember her, and think of her. Live better in her memory, not worse in her absence."
Jane looked up and saw Helena had slipped away from Angela and had quietly made her way up the stairs towards the coffin. Father Michael stepped forward as if to stop her. Jane waved him away and walked towards her daughter, reaching out for her hand.
Tiny fingers interlaced with Jane's while Helena's other hand reached for the coffin.
"Mama not sleeping." Came a very small voice.
"No, mama isn't sleeping honey." Said Jane.
"Mama gone." Small fingers brushed Maura's cheek.
Jane leaned down and picked up her daughter. She kissed her on the head and turned to walk away from Maura for the last time.
"No, honey. Mama will never be gone."