The funeral had been terrible. And Amanda's mother had shown up drunk as a skunk.
Sonny sat in the church, trying to sort out his emotions hidden behind the sequestered area for next of kin – a place meant for private grieving. But it honestly wasn't very private with his entire family there, trying to offer him solace.
He found that he still couldn't cry. His eyes had dried up the moment the doctor came out into that waiting room to let him know that Amanda had left them - that their future was gone. The shock hit him hard and he knew he was supposed to be sad . . . he knew that he missed her, that he would forever.
But yet, only his brain seemed to know this. What he should be doing – crying, getting angry, breaking down - wasn't' happening. The tears just weren't there. He only had his thoughts to comfort him. And thoughts by their very nature are cold when they are not tempered by feelings.
Amanda's mother, by rights, belonged there with them in the family sequestered area and had been invited to join them. But soon before the service was about to begin she blew in like the disaster she was. And she was hell bent on tearing down everyone else around her. Especially him.
He had expected that she would be distraught after losing two daughters so close together, that she would likely show up drunk even, but that still didn't excuse her poor behavior. Amanda's sister Kim had been shot to death in a flop house by a jealous boyfriend. It figured. Carisi had thought wryly when he first heard the news – you die like you live. His Amanda had died fighting.
But whatever pity he had for Amanda's mother dried up once she tried to interact with her granddaughter. She had revealed to Jesse that she was her grandmother and loomed over her, started lecturing her on what it meant to be a part of the Rollins family, and then suddenly, unexpectedly with a loud burp vomited all over herself, getting some on Jesse who pealed out a squeal of terror, running back to Aunt Theresa for shelter, crying while desperately trying to wipe off the vomit. His family had been trying to protect him from all of this drama by dealing with Mrs. Rollins themselves, handling his children, etc. in an attempt to let him grieve without this kind of distraction. But scaring Jesse like that crossed the line. Carisi decided to step in and do something about his nasty mother-in-law.
He grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her just outside the sanctuary. "Look, you're in a church here, lady. We're having a ceremony for YOUR daughter to celebrate HER life. We're all asking God to help us get through during this hard time. And you show up so drunk out of your mind that you scare your only granddaughter? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"God, huh?" she sniffs and then turns hard eyes on him, the devout Catholic. "Let me guess, you think this is all God's will, God's plan, don't you? That you had NOTHING to do with it."
"I didn't. God chose this time to take Amanda away from us."
"God had nothing to do with it, you moron. YOU killed my daughter!" she screeched. And then getting up in his face she snarled, "With your dick."
He was so shocked he didn't know how to react. He just stared at her in disbelief.
She nodded, like what she had just said was the God's honest truth.
"What did you just say to me?" Carisi said in a low voice laced with danger.
"You and your fucking hell spawn over there," she points at Dominick in his baby seat at the foot of his sister Gina's chair, who was making funny fingers at him, getting him to smile, "You and that demon murdered my daughter. He wouldn't even exist if you hadn't been fucking her and she wouldn't have had any reason to die."
"She was my wife. She wanted to have a family with me and I wanted a child of my own," he said slowly and deliberately to the drunken mess standing before him. But he shouldn't have to justify his and Amanda's choices. To anyone.
"Family, fuck," Mrs. Rollins said dismissively, then wiped at her eyes as tears started escaping them. Carisi couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy at her ability to cry. "I lost my little Kimmy, you know. And when she was gone I wished it had been Amanda – she was always the bad seed. But I never thought I'd lose them both."
"And you expect me to feel sorry for you after saying those nasty things? About my wife?" Carisi said loudly, towering over her. He was definitely starting to feel some emotion now – it had been building. Anger.
She turned around and started back towards the door they had come out of, talking over her shoulder at him. "You'll understand now that you have two of them. One will always disappoint you."
She stopped in front of his sister Gina, looking down at innocent little Dominick resting in his baby seat. He hadn't even been baptized yet. Her face twisted into a mask of malice.
"Like this one!" she screamed and kicked his baby seat. Hard. It crashed into the nearby wall, Dominick still locked inside it's protective shell.
That was when Carisi lost it.
It was mostly a blur. He remembered tackling his mother in law to the ground. And the next thing he knew his relatives were prying him off the passed out woman beneath him. He struggled against them still trying to beat at her with his fists. It took all of his sisters and his brother-in-law to subdue him.
He was gasping for air as they restrained him. And then he passed out.
He vaguely heard his name spoken a few times followed by the words assault and jail time as he came out of his haze.
"Hey, here," said his sister Bella, swimming into his vision. She was holding Dominick, and turning his son toward him she said, "He's okay. She didn't do him any harm."
He sat up from the floor and reached up to take his baby boy into his arms. Jesse came over to him, and knelt down to pet the almost non-existent tuffs of hair on Dominick's head to make sure he was okay too.
"Daddy?"
"Hmmm?
"That woman?" she hesitated for a second, hoping that what she wanted to say next wouldn't get her in trouble. She had been taught that it wasn't nice to say bad things about others.
"She is mean."
Sonny nodded at his daughter, who looked quite like Amanda in that moment. She had that same resigned look on her face that his wife would get when her family had really gotten to her.
"Yes, she is," he said echoing that same resignation in the tone of his voice.
