Amy brought the car to a standstill, turned off the engine.
For a moment, the three occupants remained silent.
Sheldon was the first to break the silence. "This is it, my mother's house." He said. "It's Sunday tomorrow, please do not feel obligated to go with her to church."
Amy gave him a sideways glance. "She's Jewish, Sheldon."
He snorted. "Howard was never one for upholding his own heritage, what makes you think he would've taught Clare any different?" Sheldon turned in his seat, made eye contact with Clare. "Am I wrong?"
Clare shrugged. "I'm not really religious, but it's still a part of our family and I respect that."
"You know, Sheldon, if you had that attitude, you would argue with your mother a lot less." Amy interjected.
He tugged off his seatbelt, scowled. "My mother could recite every last page of the Bible out loud the whole time we're here for all I care; as long as I get to see Stewart, she can do whatever the heck she wants."
Despite the stormy expression, Clare was certain she saw an ounce of humanity in his eyes again – It was obvious to her then that they key to his emotions was his son. "I can't wait to meet him." She painted on a smile.
Amy unclipped her seatbelt, looked to Sheldon. "He'll be very excited to meet her."
"How can he be excited about a meeting he has no knowledge about?" After a moment of thought, he quickly thought better of that statement. "Well, he may not know you're coming, but he sure will like you."
"You don't know what to say, do you?" Clare asked. This was a question that had been doing circles in her mind from the moment she discovered he was her father. "You never thought that you would have to find these words."
He sighed. "You're right." Sheldon couldn't fault her insight; however brilliant he may have thought he was, there was no denying that he was painfully transparent. "You're as insightful as you are intelligent."
Amy swallowed back the lump that had formed in the back of her throat; she had prayed that this reunion would be all that she had dreamed of – Clare would click with them, there would been an instant bond and she would be the mother she wished she could've been all those years ago. Instead, it was painfully awkward. "I think we should show Clare in now." Her voice was no more than a whisper.
Without a word, Sheldon climbed out the car, walked up to his mother's front door, and opened it. He sighed to himself; it was beyond belief to him that Mary would choose to leave her door unlocked in such a way.
Amy who had remained in the car, glanced over at the house. "This is big isn't it?"
Clare slowly nodded. "I never even knew I had a brother." She nervously chewed her bottom lip. "I don't know what I'm going to feel."
"I'm hoping you'll love him for the sweet little boy that he is." Amy found her eyes filling up, the emotion threatened to overwhelm her. "Me and Sheldon, we're hugely dysfunctional, I'm not afraid to admit that; we've made a ton of mistakes, I've screwed a lot of things up these past few years and you have every right to want to run a mile from us, but Stewart..." She suddenly stopped, wiped a runaway tear. "He's so young, so innocent; all I ask is that you don't judge him by what you know about us."
"I can do that." Whatever doubt that Clare may have had, she was able to push to the back of her mind. She got out of the car, walked around to the driver's side and offered Amy her hand. "We can do this together."
Amy clasped the young girl's hand. She took a moment to look down and noted that she was wearing a mood ring. "Clare?"
"What is it?"
Amy lifted up her opposite hand. "I'm wearing one of those too."
Clare relaxed into a smile. "I love them."
"Sheldon always tries to ruin it by reminding me that the colour change is determined by body temperature, but there's a little part of me that likes to believe it."
Clare relaxed into a giggle. "Me too
Amy took a closer look at the ring; it was a brilliant blue. "You're still nervous though."
Clare nodded in the direction of Amy's finger; the colour of her ring, practically identical to her own. "You too."
"I am." She paused. "But I can't help but think you would've known that with or without a piece of jewellery."
"Maybe so, but as long as we're wearing these, we won't have to second guess each other." In that moment, a five dollar ring became invaluable. "Let's not take them off when we're with each other."
Amy nodded in agreement. "Maybe, whenever we wear them at the same time they will always be the same colour?" She didn't care how ridiculous it may have sounded to an outsider, if it made sense to Clare that was good enough for her.
"But, what if you're happy and I'm sad?"
"That's not possible, if you're sad, I'm sad."
Clare couldn't help but smile. "But what if you being sad, makes me more sad because you're sad that I'm sad?"
"Then I guess I'd have to find a way to make us both happy."
Clare nodded and led Amy towards the house. "I want to meet my brother now." She tried to keep the smile on her face; however what Clare didn't share was that the ring had been blue for a very long time now. Bernadette had owned the ring before her, it had been blue when she died and it had been blue ever since.
It defied all reasonable explanation.
Yet, somehow it made perfect sense.
She ran her thumb over it for comfort. The unchanging colour reminded her of the unchanging fact that her mother was gone and her grief was unchanging.
And when she missed her the most, it served as a beautiful memory and a painstaking reminder.