"Hello, Mom?"

"Lisa?" There was a long pause. "Honey, tell me what happened. What's going on?"

Cuddy sat heavily on the bed. She had put on her terry cloth robe before she called her mother. She wrapped her legs in the long material and tucked them underneath herself as she sat down. Then she nervously began to play with the frayed belt.

She was not in the habit of talking to her mother; particularly about anything even faintly to do with her love life. Yet her mother had met Lucas, had assumed they were going to get married.

Her mother had been the one to say it first. "Lisa, that man's serious! He's going to ask you to marry him." And that was only after she'd first met Lucas.

"How long have you got Mom?"

"For you Lisa, all the time you need."

Cuddy smiled. It had not always been this way between her and her mother.

From the beginning, the family divided themselves into two teams. Her mother and her sister were one faction, her father and herself were the other. Lisa had never been able to break into the girl's club that satisfied itself with its exclusive membership of two. So she had become more of her father's daughter, independent and successful in her male-dominated professional world.

But then, her father had passed away and she was left completely alone for the first time in her life. That was when her mother stepped in. She began calling Cuddy every day to see how she was and to ask about Rachel.

The phone calls were curiously devoid of what Lisa expected. Forgotten were the old arguments and meddlesome advice over men and lifestyle. Instead of nagging and maternal prying, her mother now offered the kind of supportiveness that one would receive from an old friend who had reconnected after a long absence. They talked for what seemed like hours about friends, hobbies, travel and her father and how much he was dearly missed.

Lisa cherished these talks. And now, she hoped to have the same level of depth and sharing that she had grown accustomed to. She also hoped, though she would never admit it, not even to herself, for a little motherly advice.

"Mom?" Cuddy started and then she felt her throat close up. She choked out a few sobs, desperately trying to get a hold of herself.

"I'm here sweetheart. I'm still here."

There was a long silence, while Cuddy continued to whimper and sniff. Her emotions and everything that happened seemed to all, finally, run together like a chalk drawing left out in the rain.

And then her mother said, "You really love him don't you?"

Cuddy nearly dropped the phone. Her mother couldn't know, couldn't be talking about . . .

"You mean Lucas?"

"No, of course not. I mean Greg House."

"How did you . . .?"

"Lisa, sometimes you're not as inscrutable as you think you are."

"How long have you known?"

"Hmmm, that's hard to say. I'd have to say that when you first started seeing Lucas, that erased the doubts from my mind."

"But . . . you're saying you knew that I was in love with House while I was dating Lucas? How? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Darling, love is something you have to figure out all on your own. No one else can tell you what to feel or how much you feel it."

"But how . . . ?"

Her mother sighed. "I've known you all your life Lisa. That was the first time that I ever saw you consciously settle for second best. And it was making you miserable."

"But we were going to get married, we got engaged . . ."

"Oh I would have said something long before the actual wedding. I promised myself that I wouldn't interfere in your personal life but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have at least attempted an intervention. And you and I both know that you would never have let it get that far anyway."

This time it was Cuddy's turn to sigh. "But I was engaged to Lucas."

"But now you're not, right?"

Cuddy smiled. Her last tears trickled down to her chin where they dropped silently onto her fluffy robe.

"But how did you know that . . . why do you think I'm in love with House?"

"Lisa honey. Wouldn't you rather hear how I know that he's in love with you?"

Cuddy did drop the phone this time. It fell into the wide folds of her robe and she leaned sideways, extending her legs off the bed in her scramble to pick it back up.

When she had the phone back in her hand, she breathlessly said into the receiver, "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Would you like me to tell you how I know that he's in love with you?'"

Cuddy leaned back on the bed, smoothing out the front of her robe as she did so. She could hear House's low voice and Rachel's peals of laughter coming from the kitchen as House fed her daughter her breakfast. She could feel the warmth of her own body, still enveloped in the full satisfaction from this morning's session of love-making. And she could hear the loving, reassuring voice of her mother speaking in her ear as she said, "I've been lucky in my life Lisa. I loved a man who truly loved me. And once that happens, a woman can recognize it in anyone else she meets. Gregory House came to me to get your desk out of storage. And when I met him, I knew I was looking into the eyes of a man that was hopelessly in love . . . with you Lisa. He's in love with you."