"Donnatella Moss!"

Today is just not a good day, Donna thought, exhaling loudly through her teeth. The coffee maker had been timed to PM, not AM, this morning. Josh had thrown a mild temper tantrum. And Josh was leaving that night to go out of town for two days, a situation making neither of them happy. She cut herself badly in the shower shaving her legs. The line at the post office had taken an hour. And now she was at the supermarket, the supermarket that was out of everything she needed to make spaghetti tonight.

And the two-year old in the child's seat wouldn't stop squirming, had chocolate frosting all over his face from a donut and was well on the way to throwing a mild temper tantrum himself.

Amy Gardner was calling her name.

"I can play this one of two ways," Donna thought to herself as she wiped Noah's cheeks and mouth down with a baby wipe. "I can be extremely sweet or I can be a total bitch. I can not mention that I'm married to Josh or I can point out that I'm the mother of his child. This can go one of two ways. My God, this is going to be horrible..."

"Amy, hi!" Donna smiled as Amy came up to the cart. She was holding a basket with green olives and herbal tea in it and nothing else. Quite the switch from Donna's cart full of Yoo-Hoo, Fruit Loops, hamburger and Pampers. She had to get Josh on the potty training soon.

"Mama, stop!" Noah exclaimed, batting away the wipe and looking tearful.

Amy looked slightly startled, but only for a second. "How's it going?"

"Good, good. Just... shopping for groceries."

Amy started to say something and then stopped. Gesturing with her hand, she started again. "I'm sorry... is it Donna Lyman now?"

Donna could tell that Amy wasn't trying to be rude. Her eyes looked sincere and she was smiling. Not smiling like a cat eyeing a canary, but genuinely smiling. Still, Donna felt nothing if not extremely uncomfortable. "It depends, um, on the situation. It's Moss at work, but it's Lyman at daycare and, you know, everywhere else, I guess." As if to make a further point, Donna fiddled with her wedding ring.

"I see." Amy's voice became more determined. "I guess you want an identity separate from Josh at work."

"Josh!" Noah exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "See Daddy, see Daddy!"

"Oh, jeez," Donna smiled at Amy and Amy looked back at her with a surprising amount of amusement. "Ever since he learned that Josh means Daddy... he goes bonkers when he hears Josh's name. Thinks we're going to go see him."

"How old is he?"

"He just turned two." Noah was craning his head around, looking for Josh. Back and forth, his little head went, searching. He crinkled up his forehead like his father, then pouted like his mother and then proceeded to scream at the top of his little lungs.

If a piano could just fall out of the sky and land on her head, Donna thought, the day would be perfect. She turned her attention to her son, while most of the shoppers turned their attention to her. "Shh, shh, Noah. We'll see Daddy when we get home."

"I'm sorry, Donna," Amy looked genuinely sorry. Also looked like she'd rather have hot pokers through her toes then be standing next to Donna at the moment.

"It's okay. He's cranky." Donna lifted him from the cart and enfolded him in her arms. He quieted down quickly. "He had to skip his nap today because the line at the post office was so long and this morning Josh took him to the pediatrician and Noah hates doctors..." Donna didn't know if she should go on or not. Non-parents sometimes didn't want details, especially non-parents who were also ex-girlfriends. But, now that Noah was quiet and sucking his thumb at her neck, Amy seemed interested.

"Mrs. Bartlet told me that Josh took almost a year off when he was born," Amy reached her hand towards Noah, as if to pet him.

"He did. It was strange when he suggested it, I actually checked his temperature," Donna laughed and Amy laughed with her.

"It certainly doesn't sound like Josh Lyman," Amy's hand made contact with Noah's back and she stroked softly. Noah didn't seem to even notice. Donna knew he was past exhausted.

Noah's baby drool was dripping from his thumb onto her neck. Two weeks ago, she had found Josh at the computer at 4 in the morning, researching "Thumb sucking and it's effects." They wanted to ween him off, but at the same time, since it stopped so many tantrums...

"You know, he said something really sweet to me right after Noah was born," Donna said. She adjusted Noah slightly. "He said that I had done all the work for nine months and now it was his turn." Donna found herself blushing. "He did other things with that time besides care for an infant. He worked on his memoirs."

"Now that totally doesn't sound like Josh Lyman," Amy laughed, removing her hand from the baby's back.

"No, I guess not." Donna didn't really want to share with Amy, or anyone else, the memories of those last few months of pregnancy and first few months with Noah. It was something, unlike anything else, that was private between her and Josh. And maybe Josh Lyman being a stay-at-home Dad didn't make sense to Amy or even C.J. or Toby, but Donna was the one whose belly he had caressed all night and who saw him assemble furniture and pace the delivery room. She had checked his temperature when he had suggested that he stay home with Noah, but she wasn't entirely surprised.

"It's just really hard to imagine Bartlet's bulldog changing diapers and watching Elmo." Amy fiddled with the olives in her basket.

Donna smiled slightly. Noah was definitely asleep now and he was burrowing his little face into her neck, much like his father did. Except, Donna noted, Josh could control the drool. "Josh doesn't really watch Elmo with him." Donna didn't want to share the details and yet that's what she found herself doing. "I think they more watch C-SPAN."

"But you know what I mean." Amy's eyes pierced Donna's. "I would never..."

... have gotten him to do that. Donna finished off in her head. She continued to have a conversation with Amy in her head, while trying to gently place sleeping Noah back in his seat. No, Amy, Donna thought, you wouldn't have. Maybe I got him to do that because I never asked him to do that, he just did. I didn't get him to do anything, Amy. I didn't get him to marry me. I didn't get him to have a baby with me. I didn't wave a magic wand and cast some spell.

Donna stared directly into Amy's eyes as she thought, too polite to say those things out loud, but hoping Amy got the message. Hoped that Amy would understand, in least in some small way, that Amy's Josh Lyman wasn't Donna's Josh Lyman. Hoped that the supermarket down the street carried fresher tomatoes then this one.

After all, being a wife and mother is all about practicality.

Amy broke the silence with a slight wave of her hand. "Anyway, I think it's really... great that he did that. Does he cook now, too?"

A laugh couldn't help but burst out of Donna, as she remembered Josh's "zucchini, chicken, cheese, whatever" from last week. "Uh, no. That he does not do, although he tries sometimes."

"Is it edible?"

"It's not poisonous." Donna giggled again. "It's also not very delicious."

Amy smiled and Donna glanced at her lips to see if feathers were peaking out. She had gone from fiddling with her olives to her tea. The truth flashed before Donna's very eyes: Amy was just as nervous as she was, if not more so.

"Donna..." Donna had never heard Amy sound so... lacking confidence. "There are no hard feelings, right? Between you and me? I mean," Amy broke into a sideways grin that almost looked a leer. "You got the guy, in the end."

Donna found her confidence growing by leaps and bounds. "No, Amy. I don't have any hard feelings, I mean, if anyone were to have hard feelings..."

"Well, I don't," Amy straightened up quickly. "I don't have any hard feelings, Donna. You won, you were always going to win. I was.. distraction and complication and competition. I knew the second you hooked up with the Russell campaign, he'd..."

"That's not true." Noah was beginning to stir again and Donna wondered how long she had before a meltdown was to occur. Whether it would be Noah's or Amy's, Donna wasn't quite sure. "You were more then that to him. Also, it's not true that I was.. naturally going to win. And anyway, Josh Lyman isn't a prize to be won. He and I don't consider our relationship that way. We're a...a...partnership."

"And that's why you were always going to win, Donna." Amy didn't sound as sharp as she did a few moments before. "Because it wasn't a competition with you, it was a partnership. When you were his assistant, when you were his friend, when the two of you were dating..."

Donna flashed back to the last time her and Josh saw Amy. When they were dating. Actually, when they were making out backstage at the Democratic National Convention. It probably was not the wisest maneuver on earth and they had certainly gotten some looks. And Amy had seen them and they had seen her, in a moment when their lips and eyes weren't cemented to each others. Amy had waved slightly. They both had waved back and then Josh had buried his face in her neck.

They had invited her to the wedding, but she hadn't come.

"Amy..." And then Noah began wailing again. "Shit... I gotta run. But Amy..."

"Yeah." Amy had never looked more vulnerable to Donna.

Donna had many words she could have said, wanted to say, were on the tip of her tongue. Some of them cruel, some of them nice. She couldn't hate Amy. Mandy, a whole different story, but Amy...

"Take care of yourself, okay."

Amy's face brightened considerably. "You, too, Donnatella Lyman."

They went their separate ways. Donna picked up a sobbing Noah, rubbed his back gently. She quickly grabbed her cell phone out of her purse, dialed home, tried to move the cart towards check-out and ran over her own toes. "Shit!"

"Well, that's a polite way to say hello, Donna."

"Josh, can you talk to Noah for me? He's sobbing and I need to get out of the grocery store."

Noah didn't wait for Josh to reply. He grabbed the phone from Donna's hands, tangled it up in her hair and squealed into the receiver. "Daddy!"

Quickly plopping Noah back in the cart while he babbled on to his father (and his father babbled back to him), Donna began to unload her groceries onto the belt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Amy looking at them from an aisle. Then, she noticed that something wet was on her hand.

The Yoo-Hoo was leaking.

It was just one of those days.