Hey guys! Thanks again for the wonderful reviews and kind messages. Things are getting back to normal(ish) here. I hope to be able to get back to a regular update schedule but I'm not going to be able to keep up the daily updates. If it's been several days between updates, please check the reviews as I (or Mr. W) have probably left a note as to what's up.
Where is he? Amy wonders as she checks her phone again. It's been hours since she messaged Sheldon and she has yet to receive a response, which is completely unlike him.
"Expecting someone to call?" Her grandma questions as she notices Amy sneaking her 10th glance at her phone in an hour.
"I messaged Sheldon early this morning and haven't received a response. Even when we fight, which is very rare, he'll always respond within minutes, even if it's just a smiley face blowing a raspberry." Oh, he pisses her off when he does that. "Something's wrong. Even our friends haven't heard from him."
"He's probably licking his wounds. You seemed pretty cozy the other evening so for you to suddenly turn on a dime and slap him... I can't say I blame him at all for assuming you want nothing to do with him," her Grandpa reasons.
"I'm not entirely sure what I want with regards to my relationship with Sheldon," she admits.
"Really? I think you've already made up your mind that you want to reconcile," her grandma replies. "Your ego and pride are standing in the way."
"I need to believe I can trust him. Right now, I don't and that is our biggest hurdle," Amy admits. "I can't know where he's at or who he's with 24 hours a day."
"The other woman works at the same university?" her grandpa questions.
"Yes," Amy confirms as the front door forcefully closes. "They would um... Sheldon told me last night that they would... be intimate in his office," she mumbles as she looks up to see her mother entering the living room carrying a large bankers box which she sets in front of Amy.
"These are photos and important papers of your father's," Rita explains. "His will is on top. He's left everything to you."
"I don't want anything... well, actually... I want two things. I want the watercolor that hangs in his office and I want the CD of him playing the saxophone with the LA Philharmonic," Amy requests.
"Why would you want that of all things?" Rita wonders.
"My happiest childhood memories are reading in Dad's office while he played his saxophone," Amy explains. "Funeral arrangements. I understand you canceled everything?" she questions, not even making an attempt to hide her disgust.
"It's not as it appears," Rita argues.
"It is exactly as it appears!" Harold yells. "You will let us bury my son! You will stop treating us as if we are dead! You will tell Amy who her biological father is and explain why you lead all of us to believe she is Larry's daughter!"
"I do have one question," Amy quietly requests. "Did Dad know?"
"Yes," Rita whispers, looking at her shoes as she does so. "Your biological father was married. He... he was my boss. I was already pregnant with you when I started dating your father. He insisted on taking responsibility for you, raising you as if you were his. He was a great man, your father."
"Yes, he was," Amy agrees as her phone rings. Quickly glancing at the screen, she sees it's Leonard calling. "I need to take this. Excuse me," she requests while going to the back deck.
"He left," Leonard says as she answers. "There's um, he left a letter for me. 'Thank you for being the brother I never knew I wanted. Take whatever of my possessions you want, sell the rest, and give the money to Amy."
She's stunned into silence as she looks up to see a jet flying overhead. It's really, truly over for them. She's not going to chase after him, begging him to not leave her. Not again.
"Okay, thanks, Leonard," she murmurs as she disconnects the phone takes a shuddering breath and wills herself not to cry.
Sitting on the hard wooden bench awaiting his train, Sheldon stares at the paper ticket he's clutching in his hands. Once upon a time, Amy rightly called him a quitter, a coward who easily gives up the moment something becomes even the slightest bit challenging for him. When the going gets tough, the tough get going... right out the nearest exit. This wouldn't be the first time he's proved Amy right. 25 cats. 25! They weren't even dating! Not to mention his 45-day cross-country train adventure. He threw a big boy sized tantrum. All that was missing was his bottle of apple juice, a blanket, and his teddy bear.
Beverly said that he was using his old room as an escape hatch, a contingency plan for if his relationship with Amy failed. When Raj moved in, that option was taken away from him. Was Ramona his escape hatch? It certainly appears that way.
If he leaves, he can absolutely without a shadow of a doubt guarantee that Amy will fall into Dave's bed in the next few days. It shouldn't but that both enrages Sheldon and makes him want to vomit. If he leaves, Dave wins. Ramona wins. Not happening.
He picks up his bag and marches up to the ticket counter, forcefully slamming the ticket down and explaining, "I've changed my mind. I'd like a refund."
She needs a safe place to store the box of her dad's photos and papers so she receives Leonard's permission to store it in Sheldon's old room. Carrying it up the stairs, she can't help smile as she hears the guys arguing over who gets some comic book of Sheldon's.
"I'm his best friend and put up with more crap from him than anyone! I've earned it!" Leonard argues.
"I'll fight you to the death for it!" Raj challenges.
"Boys! It's just a comic book!" Penny points out.
"It's a comic book worth $250,000," Howard explains.
"Take no prisoners!" Bernie yells as Amy sets the box just inside the door of the apartment she once shared with Sheldon.
"Hi, Sweetie. How are you doing?" Penny quietly asks as she rubs Amy's back.
"I'm fine," she lies.
"I think Amy should get to decide who gets the most valuable items.l," Penny decides, yelling over the still bickering guys.
"I know that he has several comic books that are valuable. I don't know, nor do I care to know, which ones those may be. I think each guy should get one high-value comic," Amy decides.
"What's in the box?" Raj wonders.
"My dad's important papers and photos. I need a safe place to store them while in Paris," Amy explains.
"You boys have fun fighting over the comic books. Us girls are going to go through Amy's box," Bernie decides.
"He left you a letter," Howard points out as he hands it to Amy.
Taking it from Howard, she stares at her name written across the front in Sheldon's impeccable script, unsure what to do with it. She's tired of the lies, the excuses, the pathetic attempts to grovel for forgiveness.
"I don't care what he had to say. I don't. He has proven just how much he cares about me by cheating on me the moment I left town. I'm done," she decides as she tears the letter in half then rips it in half again before throwing it in a moldy jar of spaghetti sauce sitting on the counter so as to avoid anyone else reading it. "Burn it all for all I care," she decides as she grabs the box and goes across the hall to 4 A.
"Wow. I can't believe she did that," Bernadette murmurs to Penny
"I read it. I'll tell you what it said later," Penny whispers as they enter 4 A to find Amy pouring herself a glass of wine, filling it to the brim as she taps on the bottom of the now empty bottle to get every last drop.
"Whoa! Getting sloshed is probably not the best idea right now," Bernie cautions.
"We're celebrating! I'm free! To Sheldon, may rabid dogs feast on his testes!" Amy toasts as she finishes the entire glass in a few gulps.
"Oh-kay! How about we get some food, huh?" Penny suggests as Amy grabs the bottle of strawberry lemonade vodka from the liquor cabinet. "Without Sheldon here, we can finally try that new taco truck on the corner. You like tacos right, Ames?"
"Yeah, I love Mexican food," she replies. "So, um... it looked like Sheldon's fear of his tongue getting permanently glued to the envelope lip won out and he didn't seal the envelope. Who read the letter?" Amy wonders.
"I did," Penny replies. "It was really sweet. He..."
"I don't want to know. It will make what I have to do next much more difficult," Amy whispers.
"Which is?" Bernie wonders.
"Move on by giving Dave a chance," Amy decides. "He told me that Dr. Slutbunny approached him last night."
"Yeah, we saw. They talked for quite awhile," Bernie points out as they go sit on the floor.
Amy pulls the box down off the coffee table, taking three large piles of papers out at random and setting them in front of each of them.
"I'm trying to thin out the papers and toss anything that doesn't seem important," Amy instructs as she holds up an envelope labeled "receipts 1984." "I'm going to double check because my Dad was great about hiding important things in what I'd otherwise consider junk, but this can likely be tossed."
"We still have totes full of Debbie's papers we haven't gone through," Bernie sympathizes. "Did Dave say what they talked about?" she wonders as she opens an unlabeled envelope, finding a bunch of old black and white photos of a old rundown shack and rusted tractor.
"That's my great great maternal grandparents' homestead in Wyoming," Amy explains as Bernie holds up the photo. "Ramona wants to trick Sheldon into marrying... Oh, no. Is that what he's done?" she suddenly realizes as Bernie and Penny's jaws drop to the floor in shock.
Pulling out her cell phone, Penny tries calling Sheldon, immediately receiving his voicemail, indicating his phone is turned off. She then pulls up her contacts and calls Mary, growling as it goes to voicemail after the 5th ring. "Hi, Mary, it's Penny Hofstadter. Could you please call either myself or Leonard? Thanks."
"We're getting hungry," Howard says as he pokes his head in. "Hey, cool photo!" He exclaims as he sees Bernie looking at a photo of a Gothic style church.
"Flip it over, there might be writing on the back," Amy requests.
"This is the Synagogue du Quai Kleber in France. Your Great Uncle, Richie, took this photo the day before it was destroyed by the Nazis," Bernie reads. "He died in France while trying to hold Dunkirk."
"Wow," Howard exclaims as he takes some of the photos from Bernadette. "That would be your grandpa's brother?"
"Yes," Amy confirms.
"I can't even imagine what must have been going through his mind. Being a Jew, seeing and hearing about thousands and thousands of fellow Jews being killed just for existing... he must've been angry and terrified at the same time. I know I would've been," Howard comments. "Sorry. This suddenly got very deep. So, dinner?"
"We're going to try the new taco truck on the corner," Penny decides.
"Um, no. Sheldon pulled their health department inspection. We'd be safer eating out of the trash cans behind The Cheesecake Factory," Howard jokes.
"We haven't been there in awhile. Should we call in an order for pick up?" Penny suggests.
"Sounds good," Howard decides as he grabs an envelope from Bernadette's pile and sits on the floor next to her. Opening it, he pulls out several old cards that have slightly yellowed with age and opens the first one, a white card with a stork carrying a baby in a blanket. "To my precious Sarah, I hope some day you'll understand. Love, Dad. Who's Sarah?"
"I don't know," Amy admits. "Set that aside. I'll ask my Mom."
Picking up the next card, a Winnie the Pooh face, Howard opens it and reads aloud, "Happy birthday my Dear Sarah. I hope you enjoy the rocking horse I sent for you. Love, Dad."
Howard then picks up the photo that fell out of the card and shows Amy the photo of her on a wooden rocking horse that her Mom had painted brown and attached white yarn to for hair.
"My Grandpa and Dad built Bullet for me," she murmurs in disbelief. "Um... I must be Sarah."
Howard picks up the next card, "Congratulations! I am so proud of you!" with a diploma and graduation cap on the front. "Enjoy Harvard! Best wishes, Sam. It's the same handwriting as the other cards. Do you know a Sam?"
"No," Amy realizes after a few seconds as Howard opens the next card and a photo falls out. He picks it up and stops breathing as he sees the man in the photo, the same photo he has at home of his father. He flips it over, confirming his suspicions, "Amy's father, Sam Walowitz." His hand is shaking as he hands it to Amy and wraps her in a hug.
