happy Monday!


"Okay Mom, those boxes are going into Will's room. Dad, you can just put the coffeemaker on the counter for now," Dana directed her parents as they helped her, along with her brothers and sister, to move into her new apartment a few blocks away from her new university. She considered herself extremely lucky to find the place, as well as to have parents that would help her out with the rent and utilities while she went to school. As a younger teenager, Dana had sometimes not been very grateful for all the things her parents had done for her, but ever since she had Will, she could see just how much they really did help her. And they loved her son so much, despite the way in which he came into the world, which everyone acknowledged was neither his nor his mother's fault. The family had tried to go after Dana's ex-boyfriend, Ethan Minette, legally, but their case had been dismissed due to lack of evidence. The fact that Dana and Ethan had been a couple at the time did not help her at all, plus nobody else had seen what had happened after Ethan coaxed her into a darkened bedroom.

Every day, though, it got easier to live with what had happened. Ethan had no idea that a child resulted from his contact with Dana, and everyone was bound and determined to have it stay that way. He was nine-months-old now, and the world was a much better place with him in it anyway.

"Sweetheart, are you sure you don't need any more help unpacking?" Maggie asked her youngest daughter. It was nearing sunset, and the family had managed to get all the large aspects of moving into a new apartment out of the way. All that was left to do was unpack the boxes full of inconsequential stuff, like sheets and books, and Dana just wanted to get settled for the night. Classes were due to start in two weeks, and she knew she needed to get used to doing things on her own very soon.

"We'll be fine, Mom," she rubbed Will's back as he chewed on a teething ring in her arms.

"Are you sure? Because it wouldn't be too much. Oh, how about I get dinner started for you? What have you got in the fridge…" Maggie was jittery, nervous about her daughter living on her own.

"Mom, please. You've done enough. Will you please just step back and let me do this on my own?" Dana didn't mean to sound hostile, and her mother knew that, but it had been a long day for everybody, and Maggie stormed out of the kitchen where only they had been standing. Or so Dana thought.

"Why do you have to do this to them?" Bill, her older brother, questioned as soon as their parents moved out of earshot. Despite his harsh tone, Dana never took her eyes off her task, gently rocking Will back and forth as he whimpered with teething pain.

"I don't know what you mean," she responded, if a bit snarky, because they had had this conversation more than once already.

"Look, Dana, I know you always wanted to go to school and everything, but you have a baby now."

"Oh really? See, I had no idea."

Just to put some space between them, she moved over to the counter for no reason, beginning to mix a bottle of formula even though Will's bedtime was still some time away.

"Stop being fresh. You know how it's killing Mom and Dad to move you and Will out. They're going to be worried sick about you two constantly now, but you don't think about that, do you?"

"I'm scared too, Bill. I'm scared out of my mind. I have to start classes soon, which I know are going to be hard in and of themselves, but I have a baby too. How in the world am I going to protect him? How in the world am I going to juggle all of these things on my own? Yeah, I worry about the same things that Mom and Dad are worried about all the time. But I have Will to take care of and I have to take the first steps out to fulfill my goals in life. And it has to go right because he's counting on me. I'm scared too, but I don't have time to be constantly worried."

"Everything okay in here?" Capt. Scully popped his head out of his daughter's room, where he had been setting up her bureau. He had a clear shot straight down the hall into the kitchen to see his children, and he knew the conversation they were having wasn't pleasant. They never seemed to be between Dana and Billy.

What was more is that there was no secret what they had been fighting about. And most of Capt. Scully believed his oldest son was right. His daughter was just a young woman, and had no business looking after so many things on her own. But a small, strong, loud part of him had immense, immense faith in Dana. His baby girl was no doubt the most capable of his children, he had no problem admitting that to himself. And he trusted her more than a father trusts a child. He trusted Dana with every faith that a parent trusts and understands another parent—he knew Dana had realized that part of herself that had been awakened with motherhood. And that had ignited her ability to move forward at the pace she was.

In short, there was nothing Bill or any of his other children could have said that would have made Capt. Bill Scully not allow his daughter to pursue the life she was choosing. As long as he could be her soft place to land if things ever got to be too much for her, he could be comfortable letting her spread her wings and leave the nest.

"We're going to be okay, Dad. Everything's going to be fine," Dana assured him.

And he truly believed it.

XXX

"Thanks for making dinner, Mom. And thanks for all your help, everybody. I love you all," Dana was surprisingly sad to say goodbye to her family later. With all the struggles they sometimes put her through, she knew it would be ten times worse if she had nobody there for her. She hugged her father.

"Call us if you need anything, Starbuck. We're only in Baltimore."

"I will."

"Sweetheart, I know you said you were going to be using your savings to live off of for a little while, but… I can't leave my daughter and grandson on their own without being absolutely sure that you are going to be free from want," Capt. Scully presented Dana with a credit card.

"Dad," Dana was almost speechless, "Dad, you don't have to do this. I'm going to get a job and we're going to be fine."

"You don't know how much peace of mind this tiny piece of plastic will give me. Please do it for me, Day," her father was on the verge of tears, but it was his daughter's eyes that watered the most as she took the card. Then, after more goodbyes, she shut the door to her new home and looked around.

Two beds and a bath. A new start. William was already asleep in his new bedroom and Dana crept in there to observe him. Sometimes she stood for hours above him as he slept, making sure his chest rose and fell with breath. She thought of her mother and father, who probably had done the same thing for her at one point. And that night, they had had to walk away from her so that she could start her new life on her own.

Dana curled up on the floor next to her son's crib and cried for her future. As a child, she had never imagined being on her own would feel so

On

Her

Own.