Easter Sunday, 2020: 12:45 pm
Reagan Table
Erin gave Eddie's mimosa glass a final clink, as the chorus of congratulations subsided. "For a Reagan by marriage, you're certainly collecting a lot of Reagan Firsts," she commented. "And now you're the first female Detective Reagan."
"Oh, that reminds me, did I show you this?" Eddie asked, for only the fourth time since they left Easter Mass. She reached into the pocket of her lilac linen dress jacket and pulled out her new badge wallet with her gold shield, which she let fall open as if by chance.
Nearly everyone let out a good-humored "Oooh," as on the previous three times. Frank's moustache twitched.
"Were you like this, Dad?" Jack asked, "When you made Detective? I know I was around, but I don't remember."
"Oh, way worse," Danny admitted. "Your mother got the worst of it."
Eddie sent him a knowing look across the table. "We're gonna have to be Detective Reagan, D and Detective Reagan, E, just to keep us straightened out," she said lightly.
Danny smirked right back. "Please. Detective Reagan, Second Class and Detective Reagan, Third Class," he pointed back and forth between them.
"For now," she replied. "Some people seem to think I got some skills."
Frank began drizzling fresh Hollandaise over poached eggs and smoked salmon and passed the plates down the table, where roast nugget potatoes and cold ham and various salads awaited.
"We have here among us two PC's, a Sergeant, two Detectives and a Probationary Officer," he said, nodding to Nicky, who pinked up and sat a little straighter. "I think it's safe to say there's plenty of policing skills to go around in this family, and that you, Eddie, are a very good fit."
"Tell you what, the day you make Second Class, I throw my hat in for the next Investigative Supervisory post," Danny vowed, loading up his plate.
"Always gotta keep one step ahead, huh?"
"Hey, there's a certain level of expectation comes with being a big brother, all I'm sayin'."
Jamie rolled his eyes, making a neat pile of fruit salad on his plate. "You have nothing to prove in the big brothering department."
Danny smiled at her with genuine affection, and she returned it in full. She could have used a big brother, growing up, and now he was both a brother-in-law and a brother-at-arms.
Erin found this irresistible, too. "As long as he doesn't teach you to come barging into the DA's office with the flimsiest excuse for a warrant, and scare all the clerks in the outer office," she said, eyeing him meaningfully as she tucked into her lunch.
"How do I scare…you scare the clerks," he protested. "That one girl, what's-her-name, the one who sprints to go find you – "
"I'm the second female Officer Reagan, anyway," Nicky cut in quickly, trying to forestall any real storm from brewing, "And who knows, I could be the first female Sergeant Reagan. Or Captain Reagan. Why not?"
A small indignant sputter arose from the baby carrier placed in the bay window seat.
Jamie touched Eddie's elbow and slid his own chair back, as Alannah began to holler about being hungry, right now. She resembled an angry daisy, in her tiny yellow Easter dress and white crocheted cardigan and buttoned slippers. She'd slept soundly all the way home from church, but she was nothing if not punctual about her meal breaks.
"I know, kiddo, I know. Come on."
He unbuckled her and scooped her up expertly, and dipped her between Eddie and Erin for a flurry of kisses on her round pink cheeks before carrying her into the kitchen, where the baby gear was stashed.
"I'll get her back in her onesie before she eats," he said. "Not getting Great Grandma's cardigan spat up on."
"It's been though worse," Henry called after them.
"I'll take over when she's done," Eddie added.
Alannah's wails faded to impatient chirps as she recognized the focussed attention that meant a dry diaper and a full warm belly soon.
Eddie could hardly take her eyes off the pair of them, her husband and their baby girl. "And to think," she mused out loud, "if I hadn't been put on desk duty because of all the complications with her, I might not have ended up on the Marino case as an investigator, and I might not be anywhere nearer getting my gold shield. And after everything we went through, she's the easiest keeper, now she's here."
"She's a blessing," Henry agreed.
"She is. And we even prepped a few feeds ahead, so Mama can have her mimosa," Eddie lifted her glass and smiled happily. "Even if there's only a splash of champagne. It's the – "
Her phone buzzed then, in her purse beside the baby carrier. She set down her glass, and frowned at her purse.
No. No. Not today.
But as she got up to fetch it, she knew. And she knew that Danny and Frank and Henry knew it, too.
There were very few reasons why a Reagan would leave the table before meal was over, but a callout was one of them.
She'd left Alannah to go to work before, in the last month, but she'd always had plenty of time to plan ahead, to get used to the idea, and it hadn't meant leaving an important family event. She and Jamie had carefully dovetailed their schedules so that one of them would always be with the baby, at least for the first six months or so. But unpredictable callouts were another thing entirely.
She had to bite her lip, out of view of the others, but she did not say, but it's Easter brunch, but my daughter's hungry, but I'm still nursing and on graduated return-to-work and it's my days off…
Because you didn't say things like that. And she had to remind herself that it was at least partly the hormones talkin'. There would come a time when it wouldn't feel like this. If she could put her trust in her in-laws, and if she could admit when she needed help that her own family wasn't able or willing, in the slightest, to provide. A village to raise a child, indeed. There were almost enough Reagans to make a village of their own.
She scrolled twice through the message from her boss.
2020-10244 Data Warrant rec'd, cellphone logs being sent over. Sus being picked up at place of work. Need you looking through text messages, Detective Kobler had written. Sorry about the timing.
"Eddie," Erin said, intuiting what was happening, "You know we all get it. This is not an ordinary family business. And we're here to help. We've all been through it."
Danny just nodded. He didn't need to say anything.
Jamie shuffled his chair closer to the door to the kitchen, holding Alannah's bottle steady while she guzzled greedily in the crook of his arm. "Callout?" he asked, as if it happened all the time already. "Oh, man. Better grab some food for the road and call me later. Nicky, can you come grab a container or something – "
Nicky did so, and was soon assembling a Tupperware with enough food for a long desk shift. By the time Eddie had texted back her boss that she was twenty minutes away if the traffic was good, Nicky was handing her a plastic bag and Alannah was finished her lunch.
Eddie pulled her spine straight, willing herself to accept the help being offered to her. And more than that – to let herself recognize their easy acceptance of her new responsibilities and capabilities. She was so used to fighting for every inch of new ground and making sure she didn't have to ask for anything, that she felt as vulnerable as she was deeply grateful.
But she was not her mother, leaving her daughter in the care of nannies and neighbours when she didn't feel like being a mother. And she wasn't her father, caught in a toxic spiral with his business. She wasn't like that. She was a junior detective and she was married to a Sergeant, and they both had plenty of career trajectory ahead of them. Other police couples made it work, and so would they, even if it required some trial and error. They could expect a lot of disruption in the years to come, and Eddie especially, if her investigations-track career continued.
She realized, glancing at Frank, how he was wilfully preventing himself from giving them any advice.
Erin was right, she thought. The Reagans had done it all before, every generation. But what worked in the past wouldn't necessarily work in the present. The family was only waiting for them to say what they needed.
Jamie held Alannah out for a quick cuddle. Eddie nuzzled her daughter's wispy curls and impossibly perfect jellybean nose, feeling that surge that never seemed to diminish as Alannah burbled happily and stared directly at her with clear blue eyes just like her own.
"I'll be back in a little while, sweetheart," she murmured, as if sharing a secret. "Momma's gotta go kick ass."