The Anniversary to Remember- Chapter One

Mother Jane and Canon Wells were left after the meeting of the parish vestry to clean up the conference room. "Canon, are you sure you're going to be okay with me being away this weekend? I mean if it's going to be an inconvenience..." Canon Wells set down the papers he had been absent-mindedly gathering "I thought this weekend is your anniversary?" Jane nodded and Canon Wells continued "Hasn't Maura been planning this trip for weeks,? I mean it's all she's been talking about it seems. The inn where you went on your honeymoon, that restaurant, the winery and all that. Why would you want to stay here?" Jane knew she had to answer the Canon, yet she had know answer, just a feeling of apprehension, of near dread about this weekend. Jane sat down and brought her hands up to her face in a sign of exasperation "Maura is so excited, she wants to recapture the magic of that weekend, but that trip was from a different time, and I don't know if you can go back. Also I don't know if I can live up to her expectations, not like that anymore." Canon Wells studied her for a long time before responding " Mother, do you love Maura?" Jane looked at him with a look of shock on her face "of course I love her, how can you even ask me that?" Canon Wells looked at her with all seriousness " if you love her, you will get in the car tomorrow morning and drive to that New England inn and take her to that restaurant, and instead of going back use this as an opportunity to nurture that love you two share and go forward together." Jane shook her head "No this wasn't just any trip, this was our honeymoon..." Canon Wells interjected "Mrs. Wells and I fly to Cambridge England every year. We sit at the table in the library where we first met, and go to the pub in town where we had our first date. You're right though, you can't go back. I was in my twenties when I was a student at Cambridge, now I'm in my seventies, I'm not that boy anymore. Yet it helps to remember why you fell in love to revisit where you've been, so you can strengthen that love to carry you forward to where you're going." The Canon returned to his papers " and don't forget to get her a gift! I forgot to get Mrs. Wells a gift for our seventh anniversary and I still heard about it on our fortyseventh."

Maura heard Jane's car pull into the driveway. She looked out the window in time to see her struggle to climb from the cockpit of the car using her cane to steady herself. Jane looked tired, all the early mornings of pastoral visits to the shut ins and hospitalized, followed by meetings that run late into the evening, tended to be both physically and emotionally grueling. Maura was there to open the door for Jane and help her off with her coat. "Jane have you had dinner?" Jane nodded "I had some leftover Chinese Food, while we were waiting for the Vestry meeting to start. I have to cut two thousand dollars out of the youth budget, and I don't know how I am going to do it without dropping a program." Maura could see that Jane was in pain by the way she was walking. "Jane, you shouldn't be doing all this walking, it's not good for you." Jane walked into the living room and sat down. "I know, but besides the nursing homes I also had the two hospitals and then by the time I got back to the parish it was time for evening prayer and then vestry." Maura smiled "Well our anniversary weekend begins now! I am going upstairs to draw a warm bath for you, so get out of those clerics!" Jane looked up at her and smiled "Would you like some wine?" Maura jumped up and headed for the stairs "now that's more like it. There's a nice chardonnay chilling in the refrigerator."

Jane went upstairs to their bedroom and got undressed and put on her bathrobe. She could hear Maura drawing the bath and images of Maura creating a mad science experiment with her collection of bath salts and oils danced through her head as she entered the bathroom. Maura reached out and took the bottle of wine from Jane. "Here let me help you in, " Jane got undressed and leaned against Maura as she stepped into the tub. Maura couldn't help but notice the woman she loved as she eased into the water. Jane was older than the woman she fell in love with in Paris, and her body bore the scars of multiple surgeries, but after all these years Maura was still madly in love with her. Jane eased herself into the warm bath and allowed the water to envelop her. Maura poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Jane, as she took a sip from her glass. " You do realize this is one of the last bottles we brought back from our trip to Paris?" Jane took a sip from her glass "mmmmm that's just as good as I remember it. Maura, do you remember the bathtub we had in our hotel room?" Maura laughed at the thought, "how could I forget. I remember you wanted to steal it and have it shipped back to the States." Jane looked like she was lost in thought "That was the perfect tub, you could swim it." Jane took another sip of wine "that month with you in Paris, I think it was the best month of my life." Maura sat down on the corner of the tub "Every moment I spend with you is the best moment of my life." Jane laughed and playfully splashed water at her "Oh God Maura, you're such a romantic!" Jane looked over at Maura, "I love you, and the best part about our trip to Paris, was the moment I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you." Maura smiled "I love you too." Jane took another sip of her wine "this is helping my back and my legs, thank you. I couldn't believe the reaction we got when we came home." Maura smiled, "I was just relieved you did come home, I really thought you were going to move to Quantico. The other stuff didn't matter, we were going to be together." Jane looked at her " as soon as you told me how you felt, there was know way that I could take that job. My place was with you." Maura sipped her wine and now she looked as though she was lost in her thoughts "I was really scared to say anything, because I was not sure how you were going to react, but with your move to Quantico looming I knew I had to risk it." Jane smiled "I am so glad you took the risk."

Maura had gone back downstairs to the kitchen to see if there was something she could make for Jane's supper. Maura was an excellent cook who often surprised herself with what she could just throw together from leftovers and the odds and ends in a refrigerator. Jane slipped on her pajamas and robe and proceeded down to the dining room. " Jane, why don't you pour us some more wine, your supper is almost ready." Jane poured two more glasses of wine. "Why did we wait seven years?" Maura was plating the food as she spoke " I thought about that for a long time, and I don't think we waited seven years. You have to admit we were a lot closer than friends for a long time before we went to Paris." Jane finished pouring the wine "I think we both knew that this trip was to sort out our relationship, though we were both scared to admit it. I think we needed a deadline." Jane paused for a moment. "So we come back from Paris, everything I own has been shipped to Virginia, my townhouse has been sublet to my brother, I have no job, and to top it off my mother wouldn't speak to me." Maura walked in with the plate of food "I told you I would have been happy to move to Paris. We could have had a magistrate wedding and lived the life of American expats, sipping wine in left bank cafe's as I wrote my novel." Jane looked at her "You did say that. If we had turned around and gone back to Paris, I'd never have been shot." Maura nodded "but you would've broken with your family and the damage, at that point, would have been unrepairable." Jane nodded "I never in a million years would've thought the reaction to our coming out would be so horrible." Maura smiled "well you probably shouldn't have told Angela over Skype. How's your supper?" Jane took a bite of the chicken breast, " it's spectacular Maura, spectacular. Now wait a minute, as I recall, and I do believe I recall this correctly, I wasn't going to say a word about our relationship to her. We were only going to tell her that I decided against taking the position with the FBI and that I was coming back to Boston. We were going to tell my family about our relationship in person, after we got home. But what happened, Maura?" Maura laughed at Jane's dramatic voice "Well, maybe something tipped Angela off because she certainly was suspicious." Jane looked at Maura and smiled," Well, maybe it was when you kissed me. Maybe, kissing me right there on camera, had something to do with it." Maura sipped her wine and smiled "Maybe."