Chapter notes: An older Jess reflects on his life.
Trigger Warnings: Quarantine. Missing family.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my obsession with these Gilmore Girls characters
This had become one of Jess's favorite moments of the day. When he woke up before anyone else and got to take in the sunrise with a warm cup of coffee in hand, and the peaceful feeling he got from welcoming the new day with only his thoughts and the soft chirping of birds for company. During warm weather, he would open the sliding glass doors and sit outside on a deck chair. During the colder months, he would sip his coffee while leaning against the back of the couch, taking in the outside world from the comfort of his living room, alone with his thoughts. Some mornings he opened his laptop and worked on the novel he was writing, but other mornings, like this one, he contemplated his life.
Jess stood in his living room now, despite the warmth of the late spring day, drinking his coffee and taking in the sight before him. Each panel of the sliding glass doors held several sheets of brightly colored construction paper, three with childishly drawn pictures of a girl with brown skin and dark hair smiling in her maroon graduation cap and gown, while the rest spelled out 'Congratulations Angelica' with one large, carefully decorated block letter per sheet. There was also a small pale green envelope taped to the window with Angelica's name on it that Jess knew would hold a graduation card and a present of either cash or a gift card.
Jess felt his eyes start to dampen with overwhelming love for Jeremy. The feeling quickly rippled outward to encompass all the people he has been given to love, his heart swelling with strong emotion for Mallory, his children, his beautiful grandchildren, his daughters-in-law, and his foster children past and present. He felt it was a symptom of his age, how close to the surface his emotions had become over the past few years, and especially lately. The early rising felt like another. Jess had spent many mornings of his adult life rising before the sun to fit in a trip to the gym or a run before starting his work day, but it had always felt like a struggle against his true nature. The last couple of years, however, he had started finding himself wide awake in bed by five or five-thirty every morning, brain alert and churning while Mallory slept next to him. It had become a source of anxiety until he had learned to embrace the additional period of wakefulness in his day, instead of fighting to go back to sleep. So he had started quietly coming downstairs, and most mornings, standing in his dimly lit kitchen while he brewed a pot of coffee, or took in the view from his back door left him feeling far more positive than continuing to lie in bed, letting his thoughts twist into something bleak and dangerous in the dark.
These days it felt more and more difficult to not let the negative thoughts take hold in his mind. Jess felt like the world was in chaos on so many levels. It seemed impossible to remember the types of things he had worried about before becoming a father and then a grandfather, but the things that preoccupied him most now related to the type of world his grandchildren were going to inherit. He reflected on how the sources of his most significant joy were also his greatest liabilities. With everything going on in the world, all the stressors modern kids had to deal with that he hadn't, from the climate crisis, to school shootings, and now this quarantine, it seemed to Jess that in some ways his grandchildren had been given childhoods equally, if not more, anxiety-provoking than his own, despite their having significantly more loving and stable parents. It wasn't a thought he had ever expected to have at this point in his life. He could still remember the unexpected active shooter drill he had had to take part in one morning while volunteering as a literacy mentor in his granddaughter's first grade classroom, how terrified her little face had looked gathered in a silent circle with her classmates on the floor of the dark classroom, and after remaining calm during the drill and keeping a comforting arm around his granddaughter, how traumatized he had felt on her behalf walking to his car once his volunteer shift had ended.
But, this right here, taking in the love that his son's family had bestowed on his foster daughter. This was a very good start to the day. And, right now, that was what he was aiming for. Getting through each day, each minute, by looking for the good and continuing to put one foot in front of the other, even as he put on his mask to go outdoors or wiped down the food that came into the house or kept up with the news. And, he had a lot of good in his life. He knew that. Jess thought back to how welcoming and loving his family had been to Jeremy way back when Jess had started fostering him and how, now, when the composition of his family had changed due to losses and marriages and children, he still felt grateful for the same support from his family. If there was one thing that his years of fostering had taught him, it was that no one could do it alone.
Jess thought about what a good kid Angelica was. She had been placed with them a week into her senior year of high school, just as Jeremy had been so long ago. Angelica had spent much of her childhood in and out of foster care, but unlike Jeremy, the girl had a living mother whose parental rights had remained intact while the woman had struggled over the years with her sobriety and mental health. Angelica was a kid Jess would have wanted to adopt, had she been adoptable. He assumed the same was true for Mallory, but they had learned to stop having those kinds of 'what if' conversations shortly into their time of fostering teenagers. What if we could adopt this one, what if we had met that one earlier, what if we could have loved this child her whole life, imagine how different things could have been for her. Those conversations were painful and didn't get them anywhere.
Jess felt especially bad that Angelica wasn't going to get a high school graduation, or a prom, or anything more than the small family Zoom celebration they were going to hold today to commemorate her completion of high school. She was a straight A student who had worked hard for every A and deserved to have that recognized. He thought about some of the kids who had spent time in their home over the years who hadn't cared about school very much, kids he and Mallory had struggled with on a daily basis to get them to do even the bare minimum to pass their classes, some who wouldn't have batted an eye over missing their commencement ceremonies. It felt particularly unfair for this to be happening to a kid like Angelica. The girl had been accepted to Trinity College in Hartford. As a foster child, her tuition, dorm room and meal plan would be covered by the Department of Child and Family Services and Jess really hoped things were sufficiently back to normal for her to get to start college on campus in the fall. She was a very motivated student, and Jess had no doubt she could handle college online if she had to, but he really wanted her to be able to have the normal college experience, with all the typical socialization and freedom that entailed, instead of having to attend class remotely at the desk in her room or snuggled into the corner of the couch with her laptop balanced on her knees the way she had finished her high school classes. He wondered if the normal college experience would ever exist again, or if normal in general would look different going forward, or no longer be an applicable term for anything.
Jess wondered if he would wake up to similar artwork next month when the school year officially ended for the non-graduating students. Like Angelica, Mallory was also getting short-changed out of celebrating a major milestone this year. After over forty years as a guidance counselor at Stars Hollow High School, Mallory was retiring. As much as Jess was relieved that Mallory wasn't going to be returning to school in the fall, with all the inherent safety issues that would accompany possible face to face time with hundreds of students, Jess felt for her over what she was missing out on. She was still working, holding student meetings over Zoom or Facetime, and from what Jess understood, spending the bulk of that contact time reassuring her students and helping them cope with their anxiety as they wrapped up their academic year online. But, he couldn't imagine that this felt like a fulfilling ending after a long career of service. Jess remembered his own retirement from the bookstore last year, when, with now or never looming scarily large in his mind, he had decided to focus on his writing full time, and how Harrison, who had inherited the bookstore after Celeste's death, and his husband had insisted on taking Jess, his entire family, and the two part-time store staff members out to dinner after his final shift to celebrate. It had felt to Jess like the perfect retirement celebration, an intimate, nostalgic evening filled with old stories, and remember when's, everyone listening to each other no matter how many times they had already heard the stories. He had known Evie was coming down from Hartford for the dinner, but his best gift that night had been walking into the restaurant to find Darius, already seated and having a drink with Amaya, grinning as he stood to hug him, congratulations on officially being an old man, Dad. It had been a Friday evening and the kids had all stayed in town through the weekend, and the very presence of his family around him during that time had helped ease the mental transition into this new phase of his life. It made Jess sad to think that all Mallory was likely to get was a Zoom call with her co-workers followed by one with her family. It wouldn't be the same, and it wouldn't be anywhere near what she deserved.
Jess thought about the other young woman currently sharing a room with Angelica. Yasmine had come into their home during the winter of her junior year. She had been extremely quiet and slow to trust, preferring to withdraw into her room or her phone to talking to her foster parents, and Jess had felt that he was just starting to get to know her when she had left the foster care system to run off with her twenty-four year old boyfriend that summer. They hadn't heard from her again until almost a year later, when the girl had started texting Mallory out of the blue. The two had reestablished a relationship that had led to phone calls and to Yasmine occasionally coming over for dinner and one time, months ago, spending the night when she claimed to have locked herself out of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend while he was working a late shift. The smudge of a bruise under her left eye had made Jess believe there was more to the story, but Yasmine had been adamant that another waitress at her job had accidentally elbowed her in the face when they both reached for orders in the kitchen during a dinner rush. Jess and Mallory hadn't pushed the issue and hadn't heard from Yasmine for so long after that they worried they had scared her off for good with their questions.
A week into the shelter in place ordinance, Yasmine had called Mallory in tears late one night. She and her boyfriend had both lost their jobs. They were running out of money and things had been getting bad between them. Her boyfriend had been drinking more heavily than usual to cope. After much patient coaxing from Mallory, Yasmine had admitted that her boyfriend had hit her, and that it had been different than the other times, and bad enough to really scare her. Jess had driven over there, against Mallory's wishes, at almost two o'clock in the morning to pick her up, knowing that at sixty-six he wasn't as intimidating in a confrontation as he liked to think he had once been, but fueled by righteous anger and the inability to block out the idea that this could be Evie, if he and Mallory had died and her life had played out differently, and how much he would want another man to stick up for his daughter if she had ever found herself walking in Yasmine's shoes. The girl had been waiting on the street two apartments down with only a small bag of possessions in her arms and Jess had almost driven right by her.
He was glad Yasmine was spending this time safe in his home, and he harbored the secret wish that being around Angelica would inspire her to want to get her GED and maybe check out a community college, but while Jess felt some level of affection for every child he had ever parented, no matter how briefly, he couldn't say he felt the same special attachment to Yasmine as he did to Angelica. He thought back to that night, driving over to her apartment, ready to risk his own safety to ensure hers, and the lecture he had gotten from both Mallory and Jeremy the following day on how volatile domestic violence situations were and how unwise it had been to insert himself into someone else's domestic dispute without police intervention. He thought about another lesson he had learned from fostering. That there were things he did for certain foster kids out of love and things he did for other kids solely because he believed they were the right thing to do, and he had learned to stop judging himself so harshly and feeling inadequate for the latter. He had come to understand that nothing could be forced and that sometimes doing what he felt was right was the best he could do for a kid in need, even if the expected emotions weren't attached. He had learned that some foster kids, like Jeremy and Angelica, he would attach to almost immediately, come to think of them as his own, and want to give them everything, and others, like Darius, would require more time to get there, and still others would never let their guards down enough to let him in. He didn't know how things would work out with Yasmine, whether she would remain a part of their lives like he hoped Angelica would, but if she chose not to remain in contact after this, they had at least given her a safe place to ride out the quarantine. He had come to accept that he couldn't do everything he wanted for every kid, and that sometimes he had to let what he could do feel like enough.
Jess heard soft, sock-muted footsteps padding down the hallway behind him and turned to find his daughter, the one person in the world he had attached to fully and completely at first sight, walking into the living room. At twenty-six, four years into teaching third grade, Evie had an apartment with a roommate just outside Hartford. With the indefinite quarantine looming, her roommate had gone to stay with her parents in Massachusetts and Mallory and Jess, hating the idea of their daughter going through this alone, had convinced Evie to return home as well.
Jess smiled at her. "Good morning, Sweetheart."
"Morning, Dad." Evie walked over to Jess and he put an arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her to his side in a one-armed half-hug and kissing the top of her head. "Aww….." Jess watched his daughter smile as she took in the artwork on the window in front of them. "Jeremy's family's been here. This is so sweet."
"Yeah, this was really thoughtful of them." Jess said. "He told me they had a surprise for today, but he wouldn't tell me what it was."
"Dad, you and Mom need to talk to Angelica." Evie said, her voice suddenly serious.
"Hmm….about what?" Jess asked absently as he sipped his coffee, enjoying this moment with his daughter, the tangible feel of her under his arm, the warmth of her body against his side. He was so glad he had this right now. He wanted to hug his grandchildren so badly, to feel the warm weight of them in his arms or snuggled against him on the couch. He wanted to wrap Darius up in a hug and hold onto him long enough to make up for how infrequently he got to see his middle child who still lived in Philadelphia. And, Jeremy, the son he was lucky enough to still have in town, the one he rarely had to go more than two or three days without seeing. He wanted to grab Jeremy by the neck and kiss the side of his head for the millionth time.
"She's worried about what might happen if the dorms aren't open by the fall." Evie said.
"I am, too." Jess said. "But, that's still a few months away. It doesn't look like anything's going to be decided for a while."
"I know. I've had a ton of Zoom meetings on the subject with the administrators from my school. No one knows anything definite yet. But, if campuses aren't open by September and Angelica can't live in a dorm, or doesn't feel safe living in a dorm, she can keep living here and take her classes online, right?"
"Of course, she can. She can stay here for as long as she wants." Jess looked toward his daughter in confusion. "She knows that."
Jess felt Evie pull away and turn to level a disapproving frown at him. It made Jess feel like he was a child that she had expected better of and he felt like he was getting a glimpse into how she was with her students. "No, Dad. She doesn't. If she did, I wouldn't be bringing this up." Evie spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child. She sighed. "We were talking about this last night. She's worried that you guys might expect her to move out so you can bring in another foster kid. She's worried she might end up being out on her own or that she'll have to try staying with her mother again. You need to clearly tell her that she has a home here if she can't move on campus by September."
"Oh. Ok." It hit Jess hard that he could still be so oblivious about something so important after all these years of fostering and parenting. He felt like he had let Angelica down by not making her understand how wanted she was. He and Mallory normally did make it clear to the youth they fostered that no one was going to be asked to leave with nowhere to go after graduating or turning eighteen, but Angelica had had a solid plan in place for the fall, so that conversation had never come up. "I didn't know she was worried about that." Jess reflected on his thinking regarding 'what if' scenarios not being helpful as a foster parent and realized that even though they hadn't been able to adopt Angelica, it probably would have made a difference to her to have heard that they had wanted to. He tried to take this as another lesson learned, something he could easily make right with a conversation in a couple of hours with Mallory and Angelica, instead of as a personal failure. His mind went back to that time by the side of the road outside Stars Hollow when a teenage Jeremy had broken down crying, begging Jess to let him stay with him even after he had lied, so he wouldn't be alone. The experience had stayed with Jess and gone on to shape the basic tenet of his foster parenting philosophy, that the same fear of being alone would be a part of every kid they took into their home, and that his primary job as a parent, foster or otherwise, was to be there to assuage that fear as much as possible and replace it with a feeling of security, like he had done for Jeremy all those years ago, like Luke had done for him. Jess swallowed hard. "Your mom and I will talk to her today."
"Good."
"Thanks for letting me know."
Evie smiled at him. She had Mallory's smile. The one that always made Jess feel lucky when it was aimed his way. "As someone working in the school system who has no idea what her job is going to look like in the fall, I can tell you she'll appreciate at least knowing she has one thing she can count on." Evie thought for a moment. "You might want to have that same talk with Ian and Josh…..if the offer is good for them, too."
Jess thought about the two boys living above the diner. How Jeremy, who was now working for the Department of Child and Family Services, had called Jess a few weeks ago asking if he would be willing to put up two college students in their old apartment. The boys were former foster youth in their freshman and sophomore years at colleges in Hartford who had had no place to go when their dorms had closed and Jeremy had been scrambling to find housing for them as the already short supply of foster placements shrank further amid the current public health concerns. Jess had agreed and headed over to the apartment to neaten up a bit and stock the fridge and pantry. The boys were adults, nineteen and twenty years old, and Jess was really just expected to serve as their landlord, but he felt responsible for them and insisted on a quick daily Facetime call to check in and make sure they were doing ok. He knew Jeremy checked in on them, too, in his capacity as their social worker, but if the boys felt like Jess's calls were excessive, they were too polite to voice those thoughts. Jess reflected on how grateful he was that in Jeremy's current position dealing with transition age foster youth, he could handle most of his client visits through Facetime with the rare exception of transporting youth to new placements or health care appointments when necessary. Jess had read about a social worker's death online recently and was well aware that there were many social workers still in the field on a daily basis, tasked with wellness checks on children too young to self-report, investigating child abuse claims, or carrying out emergeny removals. When he had mentioned this to Jeremy, his son had scoffed at Jess's worry, claiming he had it good, and pointing out that Harrison was quarantining alone in his own basement so he wouldn't bring anything home from the hospital to his husband and daughter. Harrison had told Jeremy how much he looked forward to hugging his daughter and cuddling up with his husband, and that between what he was dealing with in the emergency room every day and being separated from his family, it all felt harder than anything he had gone through since his time in foster care.
Jess nodded. "The offer is definitely good for those guys, too. I'll bring it up when I check in with them later today."
"Ok. Good."
Jess took a step back and leaned against the back of the couch, lifting his arm again. "Can I get more hugs now that you're done yelling at me?"
Evie smiled. "I suppose so." She closed the gap to Jess, sitting on the edge of the couch back next to him and squishing into his side again. She snaked an arm around his back, resting her hand on his side.
"With your brothers and your nieces and nephew out of hugging range for the moment, you really need to work harder on picking up the slack." Jess kept his voice playful so he wouldn't sound pathetic, even though he couldn't have meant what he said more honestly.
Evie laughed lightly. "Well, I suppose we all have our own cross to bear during this crisis."
"Hey, now." Jess feigned offense as he cuddled his daughter closer to him. They remained in silence for a moment watching the early morning sun lightening the backyard. Jess titled his head toward the window. "I think Angelica will really like this."
"She will for sure. I think she really misses getting to hang out with the kids." Angelica had become Jeremy and Kristie's go to babysitter over the past year and had become attached to their children.
"Yeah, her and me both." Jess said. "Facetiming them and looking at them through the window really doesn't cut it for grandparents. I miss those little people so much."
Evie dropped her head to rest on Jess's shoulder, tightening her squeeze for a moment before patting him on the side. "I know you do, Dad. Hopefully this will all be over soon." She was quiet for a moment. "I really hope this is all over soon."
"Me too." Jess turned his head and landed a quick kiss on his daughter's hair. "I'm so glad you're here with us, kid. You have no idea."
"I am too." Evie said. "This is way better than staying in my apartment all by myself."
"Oh, yeah?" Jess hadn't been sure whether Evie had been humoring them when she had agreed to ride out the quarantine with him and Mallory. She was the kind of person, like her oldest brother, who sometimes prioritized what other people wanted over her own wants. It was normally something that worried Jess, but in this case, he had been grateful she had come home, no matter what her motivation.
"Of course. Free food, free soap and toilet paper, a washer machine that doesn't require quarters, a big screen TV, and I must say." Evie smirked and patted Jess's side. "Quite an accommodating cooking and housekeeping staff."
Jess chuckled. "Your mom and I do aim to please. Make sure you include that on your yelp review of our humble establishment."
"Will do." Evie lifted her head and Jess watched his daughter pull back and turn to look up at him. "Speaking of accommodating, Mom said I could Zoom my science class from the kitchen today at ten. That's ok with you, right? I'm unveiling my baking soda and vinegar volcano today and I think it might be too messy to do in my room."
"That's fine with me. I'll make sure the girls stay out of your hair while you Zoom."
"They can totally be in the living room if they want while I do it, as long as they're quiet and don't mind hearing me. I just don't want anyone walking through my shot."
"Ok. If you decide you need a lovely assistant for your science project, I'm happy to jump in and help out."
Evie chuckled. "Dad, my Zoom sessions are my classroom now, I can't have you jumping in my Zoom any more than I could have you stopping by my classroom. It's not professional."
"Huh. From what I've seen Simon gets to join your Zooms, but I'll try not to take that personally."
"Um, that would be wise, since Simon's a cat. He does whatever he wants. And, the kids love it when he sticks his fuzzy little face in the camera. He's a big hit."
"Ok. At ten, only Simon will be allowed in the kitchen."
"Thanks. After my Zoom, I'm going to go by the grocery store and pick up some stuff to take to Grandma and Aunt Lorelai."
"You do know they can order delivery online just like the rest of America, right? It's not like they're destitute little old people. I don't like you running into the grocery store all the time for them. Grocery stores aren't safe right now."
Evie frowned. "Dad, it's fine. I'm careful, and it's hardly all the time. I do it like every two weeks. They're both quarantining all by themselves, with Uncle Luke and Grandpa gone and Rory and Leelee in New York and Doula in Boston. That can't be easy for them." Jess could hear the empathy in his daughter's voice, and it tore at his heart. "I just want them to feel loved, and to know that we're here for them."
"I get that, but I still think you could get the same effect by calling them every day and ordering them groceries online." Jess was still annoyed at Liz for starting this, for asking Evie early on if she would mind picking up stuff for her at the grocery store and allowing it to become a habit. Granted, this had been back when the scare was mainly believed to affect people Liz's age not Evie's, but Jess still didn't like that Liz had gone to Evie with her request instead of him, knowing that Evie, like Jeremy before her, was a weak link when it came to her grandparents. Jess would have been happy to order groceries for Liz online, especially if it meant keeping his daughter at home.
"I do call them. But I like doing this, too. It makes me feel like I'm contributing something to someone else during all this." Jess could understand that. He tried to be useful where he could, with donating blood and helping the soup kitchens. The diner was closed to customers, but Jess and Cesar still went in three times a week, staying masked, gloved and as far away from each other as possible while preparing a couple hundred to go meals to drop off at the soup kitchen in Woodbridge, with a few held back for the boys in the upstairs apartment to make sure they weren't living entirely off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and boxed mac and cheese. He knew it wasn't much, but it felt like something, at least. He had been watching the news with Mallory one night when a single mom had been interviewed after waiting in line for hours outside a food bank only to be told that provisions had run out before she'd made it to the front of the line. He had called Cesar the next morning to make a plan.
"What are you talking about? You guys already made all those masks for the homeless shelters. That's a contribution, right there."
Evie laughed. "I made like four! Aunt Lorelai made over eighty. It was supposed to be a project for us to work on together, but I'm pretty sure I just slowed down her progress because I kept calling her every five minutes with questions on the pattern or issues with my sewing machine."
"Hey, it's the thought that counts. You made those four masks with a full heart."
Evie smiled. "I've realized that I really enjoy being at Aunt Lorelai's house and working on a sewing project with her, but it's not as easy or as fun on my own."
"That's ok. You're a teacher. You make a contribution every day. Think about all the kids who would grow up without ever getting the chance to see a baking soda vinegar volcano erupt if it wasn't for you."
She laughed and shoved a hand against his arm lightly. "Dad, stop giving me crap. I like helping Grandma and Aunt Lorelai out. And, mom's fine with it as long as I'm careful…..so, out-voted."
"Huh." Jess feigned serious reflection. "I've noticed that the more women move into this house, the more I seem to get out-voted."
"Aww…" Evie patted Jess on the shoulder, her voice mockingly sympathetic. "Poor Dad. Life can be so tough sometimes."
Jess smiled. As much as he did get out-voted in his own home these days, Jess liked living in a house full of women more than he would have expected. He didn't mind watching hours of teen dramas in the evenings, or all the conversations about boys or Kylie Jenner, or the startling high pitched squealing laughter when someone saw something especially funny on Snapchat or TikTok or some other app that he hadn't heard of. He found himself enjoying all of it, especially when he was able to talk everyone into gathering around the table for a game of Scrabble or taking the basketball out to the driveway for an after dinner game or two of Horse or Around the World. It all brought him back to Evie's early teenage years, when she had been the only child still in the house and the sounds of the home had changed from Darius's angry outbursts and slamming doors to the lighter, happier background noise of Evie's adolescence.
Jess thought about how staggered his child rearing had been and how he had experienced so many different iterations of domestic life because of it. His first family had been just him and Jeremy, off on their own in the apartment in Philly, neither of them really knowing what to do with the other, but choosing to stick together through all the hard stuff anyway. Then living above the diner and bringing Jeremy, and himself really, into the fold of a larger family, having to share the boy with Luke, but getting to make memories just the two of them that are still as fresh in Jess's head as if they were yesterday, teaching Jeremy to ride a bike, looking over the kid's shoulder at his reflection in the mirror while he helped Jeremy with his tie the day of his graduation, all the countless evenings spent making dinner together or talking over the Scrabble board. He thought about the handful of years that he and Mallory had spent just the two of them in her condo, with Jeremy out on his own and pre-Darius, the lazy late weekend mornings spent in bed, or having sex on the couch or making breakfast together half-dressed, the years of intimate conversation that laid the foundation for what their relationship became. Then the next chunk of time, the move to a home of their own, as the loud, difficult years of Darius's childhood played out simultaneously with the magical years of Evie's infancy. Then Evie's bright, happy childhood combined with Darius's sullen, withdrawn teenage years. The family nights, the cuddles, all the basketball games. The brief pockets of progress with his middle child standing out, the small moments of bonding amid the one step forward, two step back routine that Jess and Darius had spent so many years dancing. Then more respite as he and Mallory had become empty nesters after Evie had gone off to college, tuning back into each other on a different level now that the busy years of their lives were behind them. Followed by their current situation, opening their home to an unpredictable revolving door of older foster youth.
Jess always felt a measure of guilt when he looked back on Darius's childhood as being a difficult time. It had been, for him and for Darius, too. He knew that logically, but he couldn't shake the feeling that a better, more gracious father would be able to look back at that time through rose-colored glasses by now. He was grateful for the relationship he had been able to establish with his son once the boy had reached adulthood. He wished Darius lived closer to home, but he was glad that the kid had Amaya with him so that he wasn't alone during all this. And that they Facetimed him and Mallory every day now. Prior to the quarantine, they had talked to their middle child once or twice a week, which Jess had thought was fine since he understood Darius was busy working and living his own life, but he very much appreciated the recent escalation to daily check in's. Jess wasn't sure if Darius and Amaya were doing it for their own sake or for that of their parents', but he certainly wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
As much as Jess loved their family Facetime sessions, the things he treasured most were the one on one calls he received from Darius. Darius and Amaya were both working from home in their small apartment and Darius had taken to going for a long walk by himself each morning and another walk with Amaya after their workday ended. Jess was deeply appreciative for the days when Darius called him during his morning walk, flattered that Darius had chosen him to spend his break with that day. Seeing Darius's name on his phone left him with a chest-filling swell of gratitude for having gotten to this place with the son that he had struggled so hard to bond with during their early years together. Every good thing with Darius now, every Father's Day card, every text just to say hi or call just to chat, always felt just a bit sweeter due to their rocky start. His only complaint with the boy now was how far away he still lived, and he held out hope that once Darius and Amaya were ready to start their family, Darius might consider moving back to the area. Jess thought about what a townie his current world view likely made him, and how good a life he had ended up building for himself in a place where he had never expected to put down roots. His heart ached for his middle child some days, and the feeling had only gotten stronger the last few weeks, when all Jess wanted was to have his family near him, to hold them close and keep them safe. Jess could handle having Evie forty-five minutes away in Hartford, but Philadelphia felt so much farther from home now that Darius was the one living there instead of Jess. The thought made Jess smile at the comparison it brought to mind with Luke, who had always seen April living in Boston as too far away for his comfort. When Jess let his mind dwell on the distance to Philadelphia, he reminded himself of something that Luke had told him shortly before he died, that no one got everything they wanted in life and that he felt he had definitely been given a lot, so much more than his fair share. Jess knew he could say the same about himself and he tried to focus on that.
The sun was full and bright in the sky now. Jess turned to his daughter, ready to pull himself out of his thoughts and get on with the one foot in front of the other portion of his day. "What do you say we go start some breakfast? Wake the rest of these guys up with the smell of some nice, crispy veggie bacon?"