Disclaimer: I proclaim that I still don't own Forever.
Author's Note: I decided I was finally going to post a holiday fic on time this time around, so here it is. Would love to know what you think.
Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!
May 13, 1951
"Daddy, Daddy, wake up." Abraham whispered, shaking his father's arm, from beside his parents' bed.
Henry groaned, beginning to wake. "Abraham, what is it?" He asked tiredly.
"Shh." The boy warned seriously, pointing a finger to his lips. With the other hand he motioned for his father to follow him.
Nodding, Henry got out of bed carefully, remembering what Abe had asked him about two days before. Together they snuck into the kitchen.
"Alright, Abe. What do you want to do for your mother?" Henry whispered. When Abe had come home from school on Friday he had told Henry about a holiday all his friends were and teachers had talked about, Mother's Day.
"Breakfast, pancakes with lots and lots of syrup!" Abe answered, excited, still in a low voice.
Henry smiled at his son's excitement. "Well, that does sound good. But I think she might like something a little more English a little bit better." He suggested. "She hasn't had one in awhile, I dare say."
"OK." Abe accepted the suggestion, eagerness undiminished.
"Do you want to put in the toast? And I'll start the eggs and bacon."
"Great!" And he hurried to get slices of bread to put in the toaster, then got the butter ready. While the bacon sizzled on the pan, Henry let Abe help make the tea. As everything was finishing up, Abe disappeared from the kitchen returning shortly, knees and hands dirty, face smudged, a bundle of flowers from the garden in his hand, and a broad smile on his face. "Flowers for Mommy!"
"I see that." Henry couldn't help but smile. "Let's get some water for those, and put them on the tray."
Abe nodded vigorously, going to fill a glass with water from the sink.
Bouquet placed, Henry picked up the tray. "Alright, are you ready?"
"Wait!" Abe ran back to his room and returned with a handmade card and painted clay heart. "We made these at school. I wanna carry them in." And so they made their way, Abe leading, back to the bedroom where Abigail still slept. "Mommy!" Abe shouted.
Jolting awake, Abigail took in the sight before her. "There's my boys. What have you been up to?"
"Happy Mother's Day!" Abe said, coming up to her side of the bed, his advance followed by his father.
"What's this?"
"An American tradition, I assume." Henry answered, putting the tray down next to her on the bed.
"And you two plotted all of this?" She asked, somewhat overwhelmed by this
"The plotting was mostly Abe." He admitted.
"Well, it's beautiful, Abe Darling. And I think I know where these flowers came from." She said, rubbing the smudge of dirt off his face with her thumb.
"These are for you!" Abe offered the card and gift in his hand, which she accepted smiling. "I love you!"
"I love you too." She said kissing her son on the head.
June 8, 1967
Abigail walked into the living room where Henry sat reading a newspaper pretending not to read the war news, carrying the mail. Separating the letters, she set his down on the coffee table and took her own to a chair.
On top was one addressed to her in handwriting she had known and held dear from its beginnings. Carefully opening the seal she extracted the letter.
Dear Mom,
I sent this letter a few months early, so I hope it will get to you sometime in May at least. In short, this letter is to say Happy Mother's Day.
I'm doing alright here, no need for you to worry. Although I doubt that will stop you. But when May 14th comes around, I'll be particularly careful to be safe.
It's quite a group of guys I have with me. There's Jerry and there's Marco a Brooklyn boy who makes sure the two of us are safe, reminds me of you when I was little sometimes. I used to wonder whether I'd meet anyone I knew from one of our many moves around New York. Turns out, it's only happened once. I ran across a friend from back in 4th grade, we ended up talking about old times, our families, and how worried our mothers were. That's actually what led me to write this.
So this is my Mother's Day present, just some assurance that I'm OK and will work to stay so.
Love you.
Abe
She smiled, somewhat wistful, but very proud of her son, and also very worried for him as any mother would be.
May 14, 1978
"Where are you going off to?" Maureen asked as Abe prepared to leave.
"I'm gonna go visit my mom."
"I could come with you." She offered.
"Uhh. No, don't bother." He said. "Besides, you take this opportunity to call your mom. I should be back by the time you finish talking to her." With that he left.
Abe knocked on the door of his parents' apartment. "Abe, it's so nice to see you." Abigail said, opening it.
"Nice to see you too, Ma." He said as he crossed the threshold, accepting a kiss on the cheek. "Happy Mother's Day."
"Thank you. It's good of you to come by. Though it would you did it more often."
"Yeah, I know. But it's hard to get away from the house without Maureen. Not to mention that she's dying of curiosity to meet my family."
"How is Maureen?"
"She's good. We uhh made up from our last fight the other night, we're good again. She's calling her mom now. Judging by prior call length, I have a couple hours to take you out to lunch."
"That sounds nice. Henry's on a shift, I'll just leave a note."
May 12, 1985
It had been five months since his mom had disappeared, disappeared leaving no trace of where or why she had gone. Henry was wallowing in hopeless loneliness, oblivious to what day had risen with the sun. Abe, on the other hand, was all too aware of the date, Mother's Day. It was a day when, even as a moody teenager, he could show just how much he appreciated her. But now, Mother's Day was just an empty hole as big as the one she had left in their family.
His mind wandered back to the boards he had taken away from his father's obsessive search a few weeks before. What if Henry had been on the verge of an answer, to finding where she had gone?
Mind filled with the idea, Abe looked around his own lonely apartment, where he'd been drowning his personal sorrows in a six pack of beer, and went to the extra room where he'd hidden those very picture filled boards. Bottle in hand he sat down in front of it and tried with all his fuzzy mental capabilities to make sense of and find some conclusion in the collage of photos notes, without success.
May 10, 2015
Abe got out of his car and approached the pier overlooking the river. Looking out on the flow of the water, he thought about the events of the last few weeks.
"Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. You know, it's nice to finally know where you are, sort of anyway, to have somewhere to talk to you. Not that I expect any kind of answer.
"Henry had a hard time with your case, I did too. The clue to where you were was there the whole time. And we never caught it, I wonder if we had we would've been in time." He let out a short breathy laugh, shaking his head. "Listen to me, I sound like Henry.
"On a brighter note, still Henry related, he finally opened up and trusted someone with the big secret. Not that she gave him much of a choice in the matter. You'd like her.
"Anyway, I really stopped by to tell you just how everything you did for me meant. I mean starting from picking me up as a baby and never ending. All the love and care, I wasn't the dream child and I'm probably responsible for a lot grey hair. I've missed you.
"Well, before I get too emotional, I think we both know who I picked up that avoidance from, I just wanted to say: Happy Mother's Day. I love you." He finished, and released a bouquet into the water below.
May 13, 2018
Henry woke up and began to get out of bed. The movement causing Jo to stir beside him. "Go go back to sleep, it's your day off."
"Everyday's my day off lately." She said, sleepily
"All the more reason to take advantage of the extra sleep." He said kissing her forehead as she closed her eyes again. He finished getting out of bed and made his way to the door of Abe's room. "Abe?"
"Already ahead of ya, Pops." Abe said in a low voice, popping his head out of the kitchen.
Henry smiled, continuing into the kitchen to join his son. "Pancakes?" He asked at the smell of griddled sweet batter.
"Yep. With lots of syrup."
"Abraham." Henry laughed, remembering their first Mother's Day breakfast.
"Jo's gonna love it." Abe asserted. "Also, with a side of peanut butter covered dill pickle. That's the most recent craving, isn't it?" Henry nodded.
"What is there left for me to do?"
"You can make the coffee." A few minutes later, everything was ready on the tray. "Ready?" Abe asked.
"One last touch." Henry responded. He reached into his shirt pocket and and placed the sonogram photo next to the plate.
They made their way to Jo and Henry's room, Abe insisting on carrying the tray. At the door they found Jo sound asleep again. Henry came in past Abe and went over to Jo. "Jo Darling, wake up."
"Hummm. You told me to sleep."
"We have a surprise for you."
"Is it that smell of coffee and Abe's cooking?"
"You'll have to open your eyes to find out." Henry told her.
She obeyed, pushing herself with a bit of difficulty into a sitting position. Eyes open, she saw Abe at the door holding a tray. "What's this about?"
"This is your first Mother's Day." Henry said.
"Happy Mother's Day, Kid!" Abe added, setting the tray down on her lap.
"Oh my God, this looks delicious!" She told Abe. "Oh, Henry." She said, picking up the sonogram photo. "This is so amazing, isn't it?" Subconsciously placing a hand on her enlarged belly.
"Yes." Henry agreed, his hand joining Jo's over where their daughter currently resided. "And you're going to be a wonderful mother."