People Should Smile More

After the game Addi is the last one to be dropped off by Amelia. The whole day had been a lot of fun. She had felt like part of a group of friends for the first time in a long time. Her old friends from her other school never made her feel so included and never made her laugh so hard. The truth is she's not sure they ever got past her tragic back story. That's why she has decided to put off telling her new friends about her parents for as long as possible. Before she gets out of the car she unbuckles her seatbelt and blushes as she speaks.

"Um so this is like so lame but my moms said they wanted to meet you when we got back from the game."

Amelia shrugs and smiles her bright, nearly perfect smile.

"Cool. My moms are always on me about who I'm hanging around with too."

She walks with such confidence up to the door and Addi watches her wishing she could have what she has. Addi pushes open the door to her house and she notices Amelia look around with an impressed look on her face but she tries to hide her own smirk.

"Hi baby," Jane greets from the couch. Sports Center is on the television, she no doubt just finished watching the game herself.

"Hi Mama, this is my friend Amelia Harrison." Addi says, not wanting the small talk to last any longer than it needs to.

"Hi Amelia, I'm Jane, it's nice to meet you." She extends her hand and Amelia gives her a firm handshake.

"Nice to meet you too."

"It was a great game today, huh?"

"Yeah no kidding; two homers from Papi. He's really going for it in his final season."

"I know the team's gonna be hurting next year." Jane says.

"I think they'll be alright."

"Where's Mom?" Addi asks after they fall into an awkward silence.

"She took your brother to some documentary screening on Brattle Street."

"Wild Saturday night, huh?" Addi says in a deadpanned tone.

"Be nice." Jane warns.

"To Oliver? Never."

"Well I guess mom will have to meet Amelia another night maybe you would like to come over some time for dinner. Maura is a phenomenal cook."

"Yeah, that sounds great." Amelia says diplomatically and Addi can't help but smile at the change in her personality in the presence of her mother.

"I should probably go my moms will start to worry." Jane's eyebrow raise at the word 'mothers' and it doesn't go unnoticed by Addison. Maura had completely forgotten to tell Jane about the conversation her and Addi had the night before.

"I'll walk you out."

"Nice meeting you," Amelia says, "I'll see you soon."

"Nice meeting you too, kid. See you around."

Addi walks Amelia out to the driveway.

"Your mom is really nice and she's like really pretty." Amelia smiles, jingling her keys in her hand.

"I hope you don't mind if I keep that between us. Her head is big enough as it is. She's actually my Mama. Maura is my mom." She is shy as she corrects her new friend.

"Oh really? I just call both of my parents mom."

"Doesn't that get confusing?"

Amelia shrugs, "Only when I'm yelling through the house which I'm not really supposed to do anyway. My house is loud enough as it is."

"Oh yeah?"

"I'm the oldest of five kids."

"No way, that sounds brutal." Addi leans against the post of the front steps.

"It's not all bad. You should come over sometime. I'm sure my moms will wanna meet you too. We could do a team sleepover or something next weekend."

"Yeah, sounds cool."

"Alright, I'll text you later."

Amelia gets into her car and speeds out of the driveway. Addi watches her leave and stands out in the fall air for a few more minutes before a breeze blows a chill down her spine. When she walks back inside Jane is washing dishes in the kitchen sink. Addi grabs a dish towel and starts drying a plate.

"Good day, kiddo?"

"The best."

"It's good to see you this happy." Jane says with a smile on her face, feeling for the first time in a while like she can breathe.

"I've been so busy I haven't really had time to think about, you know, everything." She shrugs while putting away some clean dishes.

"Yeah, I know. You've been sleeping okay? No more nightmares?"

"I've been sleeping better than ever." They fall into a comfortable silence, both focused fully on their chore. Once they're done Jane pours them each a glass of lemonade and as she slides one over to Addi she sighs and says, "I guess I never knew what it was like."

"What?" Jane asks, her brow furrowed, sitting in the stool next to her daughter.

"I never knew what it was like to feel so normal." She takes a sip of her drink and then continues "At my old school everyone knew my story, all my friends acted like I would break if they made a joke and they would like, freeze, if I ever got sad. It was like they were afraid of me."

"They just didn't know what to say." Jane offers, running her hand through Addi's hair.

"I know but at this new school I got a fresh start. No one knows what happened to me. I can let my new friends get to know me first, before I tell them about everything." She puts her chin in the palm of her hand, leaning on the granite counter. Jane can tell she's tired.

"Don't wait too long to tell them though. What happened to you, losing your parents, no matter how horrific it is, and no matter how much you wish you could forget it, it makes up a huge part of who you are. And if they really are going to get to know you, I think they need to know your whole story."

"You think I should tell them?"

"I think you should decide whether or not you can trust them and then tell them, when you're ready." Jane kisses her daughter's cheek. "What do you say we order a pizza? We can take advantage of the geniuses being gone and watch a movie we don't have to read."

Addi scoffs and nods her head, climbing over the back of the couch and plopping right into the middle while Jane looks for the rarely used landline to order the pizza.

Maura and Ollie are walking back to the parking garage in Harvard Square, enjoying the crisp fall air, clear night sky, and the music the man with the acoustic guitar is strumming for a few people who have stopped to listen.

"That documentary was quite fascinating. I thought the connection the filmmaker had with World War II was absolutely touching. Wouldn't you agree?" Maura doesn't get an answer so she loops her left arm around his right arm. "Oliver?"

"What? Sorry."

"What's on your mind?" She pushes a piece of shaggy hair away from his thick framed glasses to look into his eyes.

"I was just thinking about you when you were younger."

Maura laughs a little, "Why?"

"Did you ever wonder who your biological parents were?"

"All the time." She answers earnestly, knowing where this conversation is going.

"What did you wonder about?"

"I'm sure the same things you want to know about your father. I wanted to know if I looked like them, if they were smart, if they were tall or nice or if they liked doing the Sunday crosswords like I did."

Oliver nods realizing these are exactly the things he wants to know about his dad.

"But there's one major difference between our situations, Ollie." He looks at her curiously. "I can answer the questions you have about him. I didn't have anyone to answer mine. You've never really asked me about him."

"I didn't want to make you sad."

"What makes me sadder than anything in this world is that he never got to know you. He would have been absolutely in love with you. He would be so proud of you."

A tear drips down Oliver's cheek from under his glasses and he whisks it away, nodding.

"You can ask me anything you want about him, anytime. I mean it."

"Okay thanks mom."

"You're welcome sweetheart." She gives him the sweetest smile she can, noting the saddened expression on his face, and wishing she knew what sparked this for him. They get into the car and Maura speaks to break the silence to prove she's not upset with him.

"Let's go see what Mama and Addi are doing. They've been home alone for hours now."

"That's never good." Ollie's smile returns.

"No, those two are peas in a pod. I'm sure they've turned the living room into a soccer field by now."

"I would like to see that."

Maura smiles, she doesn't get nights alone with Oliver often anymore so she takes the long way home so they talk about the film they had just watched and Ollie's coursework.

When they walk through the front door the television is on and plates with uneaten pizza crusts on them sit by Jane and Addi's feet on the coffee table. Jane has Addi wrapped up in a blanket asleep in her arms. She stirs as Maura walks into the room. Oliver heads straight up the stairs.

"Hi baby." Jane greets her wife, whispering over her sleeping daughter, barely awake herself.

"Hi, you two look comfortable."

"Yeah, how was your night?" Jane asks, accepting a kiss on the cheek.

"It was good." Maura sighs as she takes off her coat and shoes, and sits in the armchair.

"Uh-oh, what's that look?"

"Nothing." Maura says looking up the stairs to make sure Oliver is still in his bedroom. "It's just Oliver is asking questions about his father."

Jane widens her eyes not expecting the conversation to go in this direction.

"He is? I wonder why all of a sudden."

"I'm not sure; a teenaged boy deserves a father." Maura admits out loud for the first time since Ollie was very young.

Jane recognizes the same insecure look on her wife's face as when they first started dating. She thought these fears were long gone but in this moment it is clear they never left.

"Maura, we are more than enough for him. I know we could never replace his father but we love him enough for fifty people."

"Two mothers don't make a father." The look in her eyes is enough to break Jane's heart.

She gently moves from under Addi, placing her onto the couch as carefully as she can and moving to kneel in front of her wife. She grabs both of Maura's hands and speaks in a soft, loving voice reserved for her and the kids.

"Maur, Oliver doesn't need a father. He has plenty of positive male role models in his life; like Frankie and Korsak and some of his teachers at school. Any problems he has we'll help him the best that we can and any questions he has about his dad, we'll answer those too. The one thing we won't ever do is think, for even a second, that we aren't enough for these kids because we love them so much, and that's always the most important thing."

"You're right."

"Hell yeah I'm right." Jane gives her best cocky smile before pulling her wife into a deep, loving kiss.

She wraps her arm around her lower back while Maura squeezes her bicep. When they pull apart they stare into each other's eyes for a silent minute exchanging much more than words. Addi stirs in her place on the couch making both of her moms turn to look at her.

"Mom, you're home." He says in a raspy, tired voice, stretching her arms above her head.

"Hi sweetheart, how was your day?"

"It was amazing." A sleepy smile slips onto her face.

"I can't wait to hear all about it," She looks at the clock above the television, "tomorrow. It's late; you should go get some sleep in your big comfy bed. Don't you think?"

Addi nods and Maura is already starting to feel better. Being with her wife and her children can turn almost any day around. Addi stands up and stretches her back, her shirt slips up and Maura catches a glimpse of the large raised scar on her stomach. She thinks back to the phase Addi went through where she asked relentless questions about her parents; she was nine or ten. She will never forget how hard she cried for hours after she finally realized there was no one left on the planet that could answer these questions for her. Maura promised herself that day that she would never leave Oliver with questions like her daughter.

"Goodnight Mom" Addi hugs Maura and she doesn't fight her when she holds her harder and longer than usual. Jane starts to follow Addi upstairs.

"I'm going to say goodnight and check on Ollie. I'll be right back down."

Jane opens Ollie's door and he's sitting on his bed in his pajamas reading a book, his hair is in a messy pile on top of his head like he's been running his hands through it, he always rubs his hand up and down the back of his head when he's thinking hard about something. He looks up at the noise and smiles when he sees it's Jane.

"Hi bud, how was your movie?"

"It was good. I think mom liked it more than I did though." He scrunches up his nose and he looks just like he did when he was little and thought he was in trouble.

"I won't tell if you won't." Jane says sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Deal." He sighs, "Look, if you came up here to talk about my dad or whatever," He starts knowing nothing is a secret between his mothers, "it's no big deal. I was just a little curious and I think I freaked mom out."

"You didn't freak her out. We both just want you to know it's okay to talk about him and wonder about him, just like Ads does with her birth parents. We don't want to replace the memory of any of them. We want to do whatever we can to keep their memory in this house, alright? They are parts of you guys and I wouldn't want to change anything about either of you." She pauses "Except maybe I would make Addi a little less of a slob."

This gets a smile out of Oliver.

"Thanks Mama."

"Anytime bud." She kisses the top of his head, "Don't stay up too late alright?"

He nods as she shuts the door. She walks into Addison's room and she's already asleep again, still fully clothed, over the covers with the lights on. Jane takes her phone from her hand and puts it on its charger, drapes the quilt from the end of the bed over her and kisses her head. She looks at her one more time from the doorway. She looks so peaceful and Jane can't help but wish she could be that relaxed and unguarded all the time. She shuts off the lights and closes the door and walks back downstairs to join her wife on the couch for a few quiet moments together.

"Are the kids asleep?" Maura asks, leaning into her wife's side allowing herself to be wrapped up in the detective's warm embrace.

"Ollie's reading and Addi is passed out sideways on her bed."

"She had a good day today?"

"When she got home she was happier than I had seen her in a long, long time."

"Good and her friend?"

"Has lesbian parents." Jane says not answer her wife's insinuated question.

"I knew there was something I forgot to tell you."

"You knew? You were hiding secret lesbians from me?"

"I would hardly call them secret lesbians." Maura says with a hearty laugh. "Addi mentioned it to me last night."

"Why am I always the last to know things?"

"I don't know, detective."

The next day is Sunday which means a quiet day at home for Maura, Jane and the kids. Addi is working on an English paper, Ollie is sitting in the living room reading the same book as the night before and Jane and Maura are hanging their new family portraits in the hallway. Maura is standing back with one eye squinted.

"It needs to go more to the left."

Jane sighs, "Maur, come on can I just hang it please?" Her voice is whiny, they've been working on hanging four pictures for an hour and a half.

"Do you want the photos to be crooked?"

"Yes, more than anything in this world." Jane answers dryly, pulling out the level and measuring tape. She tries to bang the nail into the wall but she is stopped by her wife's voice.

"Wait."

"Maura, I just measured it. Even the great Dr. Maura Isles cannot be more precise than a measuring tape and a level."

"I think we should hang them at the other end of the hall." She points to the empty wall space near the kitchen. Addi giggles at her Mama's frustration from her spot at the kitchen island.

"Nope, no." Jane bangs the nail into the wall and hangs the picture of all four of them in the middle of the others. "You can hang them by yourself next time."

"That wasn't so bad."

"An hour and a half for four pictures." Jane emphasizes the word four. "I could've had it done in twenty minutes."

"Maybe Mama, but isn't it better doing these things together?" Addi says cheekily.

"Shut it." Jane shoots back with a grin trying to feign anger. She grabs a beer from the fridge.

"How's your English paper coming along Addison?" Maura asks running a hand on her daughters back. Addi sighs and shrugs one shoulder.

"It's okay."

"What's the assignment?" Jane asks, taking a sip of her beer.

"We're supposed to write an essay on the biggest moral dilemma we've ever faced. We just read To Kill a Mockingbird. I guess I'm just running low on inspiration, but it's not due for a few weeks so I've got some time to think on it."

"That's a pretty heavy assignment. What happened to the good old fashioned book report?"

"Dr. Pierce says self-reflective essays offer more to the reader and the writer than analytical papers do so it's important we know how to write both."

"Dr. Pierce, huh?" Jane asks, looking at Maura who is seemingly unaware of her wife's stare.

"Yeah. I don't know. I'd rather just write like a research paper or something." Addison continues unaware of the tension in her Mama's shoulders and jaw.

"You'll figure something out sweetheart. You're a beautiful writer." Addi gathers her stuff.

"I'm gonna go to my room." Ollie says standing up from the couch.

"Me too." Addi adds and follows her brother up the stairs.

"I thought we decided we weren't going to put Addi in Andrew's class." Jane says once her kids are out of earshot.

"He's the best English teacher at that school. It hardly seems fair to deprive her of the best education just because you don't like him."

"It's more than that and you know it." Jane defends.

"I don't understand why this is still a topic of conversation. It was over twenty years ago."

"Maur, you were fourteen, he was nineteen. That's statutory rape and I'm a cop. Not to mention our daughter is fourteen years old now. You honestly don't see why that would make me uncomfortable?"

"He's not a pedophile Jane." Maura's voice thickens, tears glaze her eyes.

"There's a reason why statutory rape gets people on the sex offender registry; it's because they are predators. You were so young, Maur, he should have known better." Maura nods, knowing deep down that Jane is right. "I can't take the chance that he might do something to our little girl because he's still upset about what happened or God forbid he actually is a pedophile. I can't sleep at night knowing I might be putting her in danger every day." Now it's Jane's turn to let tears wet her eyes.

"Okay, okay. We'll get her switched to another classroom tomorrow." Maura takes Jane in her arms to comfort her. "I'm sorry I didn't think, I-"

"It's okay. I just need to keep her safe." Maura lets go and looks into her wife's eyes.

"Can we just not tell her why we're switching her? I don't want her to think less of me."

"She would never. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Even so,"

"We'll tell her there was a mix up with her schedule or something. She'll probably just be relieved she doesn't have to write that essay." Maura laughs.

"That's probably true."

"I'll give the school a call tomorrow and get it sorted out." Jane says rubbing circles on Maura's back. "I love you."

"I love you too Jane."