Before I'd met Maura, my life had been black and white, all the minute shades of grey. She wound her way into my world in a moment of unwanted kindness and had engulfed everything in color. The millions of hues I had never known existed between the grey were held in her eyes.
And she took it all with her when she died.
It has its own type of sadness, to walk through life seeing grey where you once saw brilliant color.
I remember the first time Maura ever brought me into her home, the bold pops of color, the warm greens and blues of pillows on the couch, and upholstered dining room chairs. The blood-red comforter on her bed, the purple duvet on the guest room queen with accented pillows and curtains. Yes, there were rich browns and plain khaki and tan. There was not a piece of Maura Isles that did not incorporate color.
As someone who had lived on that fine line of white and black, who delved into the shades of grey but never really saw the colors of the universe, being with Maura was like drowning and suddenly coming up for air. With Maura, I could breathe.
And I never really remembered what it was like to suffocate until she'd gone.
I believed that being alone wasn't a curse, it was a choice- because I chose to become a homicide detective, and I chose to be dedicated to my family. I chose to have succulents instead of plants, I chose a one-bedroom condo instead of a house, and I chose not to know my neighbors. These were all conscious decisions, and being alone had been one of them.
Maura had changed all that again. And here I was- trying to let her in again.
The blanket was plaid with royal blue and red stripes, white fringe on the edges. Fenway was playing in a pile of leaves while Maura packed up the picnic basket. I watched my daughter with awe as she threw her tiny body up in the air, twisting, floating so innocently as she fell on a pile of dead leaves and grass. She laughs as she catches her breath, this warming sound that reverberates through her body and into mine. I think it sends the same chill in Maura as her hand pauses its deft actions, her eyes close softly with a soft pause and her lips twitched up into a small smile.
And just like that- it's gone.
"Shall I take her or...are you?"
I close my eyes tightly as my wife asks the question. It's been two weeks since she admitted to an affair while being dead. It was something I was still trying to digest, this foreign object stuck in my windpipe and no matter what I tried it had forged its home in my esophagus and refused to budge.
The worst part is that I associated Maura with this feeling, with my feelings, which made me look at Maura and feel like I was choking.
Today it's not as bad. Today I feel like offering up my hand to touch the hair that was covering her eyes as she worked. Today I felt like a soft touch, a warm embrace. Today I wanted to be a wife.
"No, you can take her. I want to stop by the precinct for some paperwork. I'll catch up with you two at home." I pause, flicking my eyes up to her frozen form. "I was thinking we could have dinner together- just the three of us, like a family ya know?"
Maura turns to look at me, a shocked expression on her careful face. "I- I would love that, Fenway would love it as well. And I am sure her pickiness to food is right in line with your culinary expertise." A small smile is beginning on her lips and I know she is joking with me. I return her joke with a small chuckle and half-formed smirk.
She smiles once more before turning back to her picnic basket, coat, purse, and blanket. I know she is wondering the best way to balance all of these items and still be able to hold Fenway's hand as they trek to the car. "I can take the blanket and basket home with me," I say softly.
A nod is the only response I get as she stands with her purse and jacket. When she looks down at me, I am glued to my daughter playing in the pile of leaves. The trees don't lose their leaves nearly this much in California nor are they as dense which explains her bewilderment. I know my mother must have a memory of me exactly like this.
"I will always regret that you were not there for so many of her firsts," Maura says sadly. "I wish none of this had happened. We still would have had our beautiful daughter but she would have grown up with two mothers instead of one and a photograph. She told one of the girls in her daycare that she had an imaginary Ma who stopped bad guys with a golden plate." Maura smiles.
I can see it, Fenway not understanding what a shield is at that age. And yet it makes me so incredibly sad that my daughter thought I was imaginary because I was never given the opportunity to be present. And just like that- the lump is back in my throat as I look up at my wife.
"Nevertheless, I made several home videos of Fen. In the beginning, it was practically one a day, there is one somewhere of just her sleeping for four hours straight. I was so mesmerized. These tapes exist because of you, Jane. Not that they are in any way sufficient for you missing your daughter but I tried mailing them to you. I am positive Maxwell intercepted them all. I am also positive he has these videos stored away somewhere and though they will be nowhere near as satisfying as having had been there, I hope they will fill something inside of you."
And then she knelt next to my daughter making a snow angel of leaves, tickled her stomach before scooping her up and throwing her- as gently and gracefully as only Maura Isles can- over her shoulder. Fenway's eyes are closed tightly as she laughs, a sound that is half amusement and half high-pitched scream.
I press my finger to an earpiece in my right ear. "This true Maxwell?"
His figure moves slightly to my right as he and all the other Marshals slowly track my wife and daughter through the Commons and toward the car where Asher waited. "Yes." That is the only response but somehow I knew they would all be waiting for me by the time I got home.
And just like that- I swallow the lump stuck in my throat and though my chest hurts from the strain and my trachea feels scraped clean- I begin to heal.
I didn't get through nearly as much paperwork as I had hoped. The reports had been piling atop my desk during the month I'd been gone. Cavanaugh was giving me leeway, knowing exactly where I had been and what I had been doing but the brass couldn't know. Not yet. There was no way of knowing who was involved in Maura's escape. Something we still had yet to discuss.
It wasn't without a lack of trying. Things kept getting in the way. My feelings. Her feelings. Fenway. And somehow the details had just slipped through our fingers. Details which had slowly brought us together had begun tearing us apart. It was the details of Maura's affair specifically.
But right now it was the look on her face when I suggested a family dinner that was stuck in my head.
Her smile, the hope in her hazel eyes. The way her fingers touched the wedding band returned to its perch on her left finger. The way her shoulders relaxed and her body vibrated with excitement. These things were wholly Maura and belonged to the woman I fell in love with.
And it was that face that kept me retyping the same sentence over and over for an hour.
"Jane?" Frost asks cautiously from his desk. "Why don't you go grab an hour? Clear your head. Come back later. We'll cover a couple of cases." He motions over to Korsak who is staring at me with concern and agreement in his eyes.
"Yeah. Okay. Thanks, guys."
They exchange looks because I gave into their suggestion too easily. But I'm too worn down to fight. So I take the elevator down to the morgue and follow the familiar pathway to my closet. Our closet. The one Maura will soon return to. The lab coat on the back of the door will once again have an owner.
Sitting on the cot is the box of DVDs I requested from Maxwell. The extra laptop is sticking out from underneath and I know this is probably not the best way to spend my "head-clearing" hour.
Fuck it.
I grab the first disc and pop into the laptop, waiting for the movie player window to pop up. And when it does the screen is flooded with Maura's face. It's her same face but different. Fuller. And I am so entranced.
"So today I am officially eight months, 1 week, and four days into my pregnancy. And while it has been the best months of my life, I cannot wait until she is finally out of me."
A smile spreads wide across Maura's face as she rubs her enormous stomach.
"This is something you would probably laugh at Jane. Growing life is something I am immensely proud to be able to do and at the same time, I am so ready to be done. I think Robyn and my mother are ready as well, I am driving them crazy with my pregnancy hormones. Just yesterday Robyn told me the tulips in the garden were starting to bloom and I began sobbing. Sobbing, Jane! No rhyme or reason to it. Think I terrified her death."
She laughs and then her face disappears from view. The screen doesn't stay blank for long as she pops back into view with a chocolate bar.
"Speaking of food, I think you would appreciate this the most. We are in Tempe, Arizona currently and I am having the worst pregnancy cravings. Do you know what I want constantly? A hotdog. But not just a regular hotdog. A hotdog from Fenway Park. I think seven different Marshals have tried bringing me a hotdog they swear will work but they never do. When will they learn?
"But I am beyond hope that you will find me before she is born. And hopefully, you will come armed with twenty hotdogs from Fenway. Anyway, I love you, Jane. And I cannot wait to see you and our daughter in your arms. But mostly I want the hotdogs."
She smiles this mischievous smile and the video stops. I absently reach for another from the box, not caring about dates or order, and once again pregnant Maura fills my screen.
"I have just begun to show my pregnancy. I am going to have to tell my Marshal soon." She sighs and a look of exhaustion spreads across her face before she buries it in her hands.
Taking a deep breath in she looks once again into the camera. "Jane. I left a month ago, left you on a dock with no idea what happened to me. That is a lie. You will know that I died. Marshals set the scene before we arrived, some vials of blood I donated over the course of weeks thrown haphazardly across piles of wood and plaster and cement. Somehow they will get parts to prove I was at the center of the explosion. Popov will explain that it is called 'red mist'. What a person is reduced to at the epicenter of an explosion. Fine mist. And it will make sense and it will be believable.
"To everyone but you. To you, this will never be believable or make sense. To you, you will become a widow in a matter of seconds when you had just been a wife, when we had dinner plans and a life to live. And I will never forgive myself for how hard your life is about to become. Nor do I think I would ever be able to live had our situations been reversed."
She pauses and stands up. The sage green t-shirt she wears is falling over a pair of department store jeans and it is true, a small, round, pregnant belly is beginning to show against the material. She begins to pace in front of the camera, occasionally rubbing her eyes.
"It has been hard to sleep. I know thant I can leave the program at any moment, admit it was all a mistake, and beg for your forgiveness. However, I think you would be more betrayed if I were to do this and take the easy way out. The sins of my father are finally beginning to catch up to me, and I swear to god, Jane, I cannot live a life in which you would be at risk of injury or death because of him.
"I know you would want to be wherever I am. I just cannot have you here. In harm's way. Paddy is here, working with the Marshal service to capture his enemies. Some sort of trade for a lesser sentence. This good does not cancel out his wrongs and I do not approve. And I know you would not either."
A hand pauses on her pregnant belly. "This child is a miracle, Jane. Half you and half me. The first of her kind. The most loved child on earth. The most protected. And if anything should happen to me, she will become yours. She was already yours, and I will regret you not being here to watch her develop for the rest of my life. You will never see this, I will never admit this, but I hope beyond anything that if you can never forgive us, you never take it out on her if . Blame me. Hate me. Fight me. But love our daughter as I have loved you from the moment I met you. Make her the sun and you the moon. The center of your universe. And protect her like I know only you can. I love you Jane, and my god do I miss you."
Tears are streaming down my face and I can't be bothered to wipe them away. I again blindly reach for a disc, not caring what stage of development I catch Fenway in. I need this vulnerable Maura, this pain that gives me the glimpse into why she cheated.
The room is white with phosphorescent lights, Maura is in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV. Constance's voice comes from close to the camera but out of sight.
"Are you ready my love?"
Maura looks up at her, pain across her face. Robyn stands next to her, holding a cup of water and damp cloth. "Contractions indicate that I am, though we do need to wait for the doctor to confirm my dilation."
Robyn dabs some sweat from Maura's forehead and a few moments later a man in scrubs enters the room. "I hear we're declining all pain medication?" He sits on a rolling stool positioned at the end of Maura's bed.
"I do not want to be hindered in any way by medication. Childbirth is natural and should be experienced as such."
He smiles. "It's also painful."
Maura clenches her teeth and grips the handles on the bed. "I deserve it." She mutters.
"I'm going to check your dilation now. See if we're ready to push. I know you've been waiting almost 72 hours to get fully dilated." He pulls on a pair of gloves and Maura slides to the edge of the bed, placing her feet in the stirrups. He lifts her gown and his hand disappears. Her face contorts slightly. "Well that is a head. You're ready to push Maura, just let me grab my nurse."
The gloves snap off and he exits the room. Robyn is once again dabbing her forehead with the damp cloth, offering small sips of water. Constance hovers at the back videotaping. The doctor enters once again with a blonde nurse pushing a bassinet full of supplies. They both glove up and he returns to his place at the base of Maura's bed while the nurse positions the back of her bed in an upright position so Maura is sitting up.
"Okay Maura, just a few pushes and then you'll have a beautiful baby girl."
She takes a deep breath, grips the railings, makes eye contact with Robyn who smiles encouragingly and nods at her. Maura turns to look at the doctor who tells her to push. Her teeth grit together and her whole body tenses as she pushes, and suddenly a piercing scream emanates from her body and she violently relaxes against the bed.
"Good Maura! The head is coming through. Just a couple more pushes, you can do this!" The doctor encourages.
Maura begins sobbing. "I can't. I can't do this. I need Jane. I need my wife. I can't do this without my wife. What have I done? Fenway can't come. Jane needs to be here. Oh god, Jane!" She is becoming hysterical.
The blonde nurse rushes to her side and grabs the cloth from Robyn who freezes up. "Honey, look at me." She dabs Maura's head as she cries. "Your wife isn't here. And that is sad and terrible. But guess what? I'm here. And I'm not going to leave you because your baby girl is coming. Fenway you said? That's a beautiful name. Jane will love it. And she will love your daughter and she will love you. Think of that and let's do this together."
"Do you promise?" Maura asks through her sobs. "Do you promise Jane will still love me?"
"Maura. Oh Maura. Of course Jane will still love you. You're her wife and you are here, doing this incredible thing all by yourself. You created life all by yourself!"
"I need her. I need Jane." She sobs.
The nurse grabs the handrail and climbs into the bed so she is sitting behind Maura, her legs against Maura's hips. She grabs her hands off the railing and grips them in her own. "I'm Jane. I'll be Jane. Just lean against me, that's it." Maura's body relaxes against hers. "Take what you need from me." She looks at the doctor and he nods. "I need you to push, honey."
Once again Maura takes a deep shuddering breath, this time through her tears and tenses up. Another huge push, another deafening scream, her hands clenching the nurse's hands as tight as possible. And then she relaxes, melting into the nurse.
"Excellent, Maura, the head is out, one more push and you'll have a baby girl. Fenway will be here." The doctor tells her, trying to motivate the exhausted woman.
"Jane. Jane. Jane. Jane." Maura is sobbing my name and pressing her head against the nurse's neck. She in turn kisses Maura's head and whispers.
"I'm here Maura, I'm here. Let's do this. Let's have a baby."
"Jane." Maura says once again, tears pouring down her face. Another large push and scream but this time it isn't just pain, it's pain and my name being screamed. She relaxes one last time and the freshly silent air is broken by an infant's scream. The doctor yells something and a new nurse rushes in the room. They take Fenway to the bassinet to examine and clean her as Maura lays exhausted against the nurse.
The nurse is wiping away sweat and tears from Maura's head. "You did such a great job, Maura. You had a baby! She's here. You carried her for nine long months and finally she is here."
Maura begins sobbing as they place Fenway in her arms. "She is perfect." Overwhelming sadness replaces the joy in her face. "Oh god, Jane. I've done this without her. She will never forgive me. Oh god, what have I done? My baby, my beautiful baby won't have a mother." She buries her face in the infant's stomach and blanket. The nurse behind her shifts uncomfortably and tries to move.
"No. Please, I know you have a job but could you stay just a while longer? Can you hold me just a few more minutes? I need to pretend you're her. Please?" Desperation is her voice, her face.
The nurse nods and embraces Maura and Fenway as she places a kiss on Maura's forehead. "I can be Jane for you. But just know that your real Jane would do anything to trade places with me. And she will never hate you for this. For how strong you have been. Never."
"You're wrong." Maura says limply. "She'll never forgive me." And she leans into the nurse holding her newborn baby sobbing quietly.
And just like that I am ripped apart again. How Maura suffered. Differently but the same along with me. And I know I can deal with it. I can confront her about the affair. I can begin to heal. Because my wife ripped her body apart for our beautiful daughter and the whole time she wondered if I would hate her for it.
And I couldn't have loved her more.
Dinner went by in a rush. My head is full to bursting with all the videos I watched, never having returned to the bullpen. Maura in various stages of pregnancy, Fenway learning to crawl, and just as she'd promised- a four hour video of Fenway sleeping in her crib, her tiny thumb suckling away in her mouth. Every emotion had flooded through me and my body felt burned out. Like I'd been struck by lightning- every nerve root had been exposed.
All that remained was confusion.
When I arrived home, Maura and Fenway were in the living room assembling a puzzle, my mother hovering along the edges hoping to be invited. Maura gave our daughter a bright smile of encouragement as Fenway turned to hand Angela a puzzle piece and then disappearing beneath her mother's hair once it was taken. My mother grinned proudly and spoke warmly toward Fenway as she tried to find where the piece belonged. But the minute I'd been spotted by my daughter, she was sprinting full speed toward me.
I could see Maura's spine stiffen when Fen screamed, "Ma!" and how her whole body tried not to vibrate. God, Maura, I wish I could take back all the pain I've caused. Angela gave her a hand a reassuring squeeze before standing up to join us.
"Heard you were making dinner tonight, Janie." My mother gave me a knowing glance as she walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. Fenway was telling me about the rest of her day animatedly.
I looked into her eyes, "Yeah, just for Maura and Fenway. I wanted to do something for us." My mother smiles and walks away with the glass of water and hands it to Maura.
"Sounds great Janie, have a great time." She kisses Maura's forehead, whispers something into her ear and then leaves the house.
Maura begins cleaning up the puzzle as I ask Fenway if she wants to help me get dinner ready. My daughter immediately agrees and rushes over to the drawer where we have put her apron and other dishware. I laugh and look up at my wife who is standing awkwardly by the game cabinet, unsure of what to do. "Want to join us, Maur?" I ask. Relief spreads across her face and a brief smile flicks its way through her lips. She nods and Fenway squeals, rushing back to gather another apron.
I had planned gnocchi and was excited to help my daughter mold the dough with her small hands, watching the small shapes she awkwardly makes placed next to the expertly folded ones Maura is still able to do. When I have placed the gnocchi into the water to cook and sauté the carrots, Maura announces it is time for her and Fenway to go get cleaned up. She instinctively leans into me and gives me a soft kiss on the cheek as our daughter bounds up the stairs. Before I can react she is disappearing from my view up the stairs.
It's a brief view of what our lives could have been, had none of this ever happened. A wave of sadness laced with anger washes through me but all I can see is Maura crying into Fenway's baby blanket just moments after giving birth.
How could I ever doubt the love I had for her?
We ate in a calm silence making small talk every once in awhile. Fenway continued to talk about making dinner as if Maura and I had not been present. She told me about making a puzzle with grandma, something I knew Angela would love to hear. She even asked if grandma could help her take a bath.
I take Fenway across the back courtyard to the guesthouse in which my mother resides. The lights are warmly glowing in the windows and I hear the soft noise of a television up just enough to be heard but low enough to hear talking in the main house. I scoff silently, knowing she's just looking out for both her daughters.
Fenway knocks animatedly on the door and I hear my mother's soft chuckle. There's no doubt to her this is the knock of a child. Angela is already in pajama pants and a t-shirt, her hair pulled up from her neck in an eggshell clip. My mind is back in the main house where Maura is doing the dishes as Fenway tells her grandmother that we said it was okay for Angela to get her ready for bed and even sleep with her if that's okay. A huge smile is impressing it's way across Angela's face and she says of course, tells her newest granddaughter that they should do it in our house rather than hers and takes my daughter's hand from mine.
Fear spreads through me as the small hand is taken from mine. My mother understands, she squeezes my shoulder in reassurance. If I'm unable to fix things with Maura this may be a constant feeling. I watch them disappear into the house and I step into my mother's. It's a different atmosphere here than the main house. The colors are warmer, richer. A deep yellow on the walls, the cabinets in the kitchen a dark mahogany. Family photos and heirlooms clutter the walls, bordering on being gaudy. Every inch of space is covered, photos, framed artwork from when I was in second grade, an essential oil diffuser in the far corner.
The sofa is dark leather and is well worn. Throw blankets are on every corner and there's a basket of them by the fireplace. The side tables and coffee table are made out of a similar dark wood as the kitchen. I begin my way slowly through the house turning off the lights in her bedroom and kitchen. I'm back in the living room, moving toward the television. I stop at the stereo system and turn it on quietly. I fiddle with the stations before an ethereal song begins playing, a chorus humming quietly in the background.
"Jane?" I turn at my name from the doorway. Maura is standing there in her own pajamas, a worried expression dancing across her face. "You have been here for 30 minutes. Are you alright?"
I hadn't known how much time had passed. I was wrapped up in my mother's home, the memories adorning the walls. Maura and I had started that, our home was still predominantly her house but the photos of our life together were making their way into every room of the house. The office had been rearranged to accommodate two desks instead of one, some tasteful Red Sox memorabilia in the shelves next to the television stacked against Maura's Forensic Science Journals dating back to 2001. The gun safe we'd installed in the closet, the smaller one tucked expertly into a drawer in the kitchen next to the wine fridge containing only Chardonnay.
Nausea floods my body. Would we have ever gotten here? To Angela Rizzoli status?
Her hazel eyes are boring into me. "Jane?" She asks harder, actual concern spreading into her eyes.
I dart from the room as the voice of Kate Havnevick begins to sing softly from the stereo. I barely make it to the bathroom before my muscles begin to violently empty the contents of my stomach. I hear Maura's soft footfalls through my own noise. She is here, staring at me, her hands gathering up my hair as she rubs my back gently.
She doesn't speak, just her warm hand as it roams my back until the convulsions stop. I slump against the toilet bowl, hands clasping either side of porcelain, head bowed in exhaustion. Her hand disappears from my back and tissue appears in front of my face. I take it from her hand and straighten up, my butt pressed into my heels as I kneel on the floor.
"Jane?" She tries for the third time. "Are you alright?"
She moves to close the lid of the toilet and sits atop it. The concern and love in her eyes are too much and I start crying. I can feel her internal debate, she wants to come to me, to hold me. Her body weight shifts to stand up but I hold my hand up to her and she slumps back onto the seat.
"Every single part of me misses you, Maur. I ache when I see you because I want to hold you." My now red eyes are looking up at hers. "Loving you is physically painful for me. Partly because of the death thing and mainly because of the affair thing." I pause, trying to consider my next words. "Do you think I enjoy causing you to suffer?"
Her eyes dart down to the floor where she fiddles with a tissue in her hands. "I assumed it was intentional on your part. To cause me pain that I had caused you."
I close my eyes. Was I that vindictive? "No." I growl and slump against the wall, my legs coming out from underneath me. "I never wanted to hurt you. From the minute you care into my life, I have never wanted to hurt you." Both our minds drift back to that day, me undercover with narcotics, her coming in for her first day on the job. Me, all gruff and fighting with Stanley for a freaking muffin. Her, all kindness, offering to pay for a real meal and get me in touch with people to help get me off the streets. Her, thinking I was there because I'd been abused. Me, thinking she was the most irritating person I'd ever met. Us, thinking how beautiful the other was.
"We were so young then. Both wanting to save the world." She pauses. "You became my world, Jane. All I wanted to do was save you."
"Well that turned out well for everyone involved, didn't it?" I snap at her.
A shudder runs through her body. Fuck, Jane. You've already done it, already hurt her. We've already been through this fight, why she left, why she didn't tell me. There's no point in bringing it up over and over again, deepening the wound. "I'm sorry, Maura. That- that was a low blow."
She sniffs back a tear. "It is okay, I deserve it."
"No, you don't. I'm bitter."
"You have a right to be, Jane."
Our eyes meet and she can see the hunger in my eyes. I need to know. Need to know every detail so we can potentially heal, so we can move forward. Plunge the knife in deeper, Maura. Twist it for maximum damage and then withdraw, allow the wound to breathe and heal.
She sighs and leans back. "Okay, Jane." She rubs her eyebrows before looking at me. "It started about two months after I left. I grabbed drinks after work with a few coworkers and it flooded me with memories of here, the Robber. Of you." She stops. Didn't she know how hard this would be?
"I was sad and pregnant and way too emotional. I did not know that my libido would increase during my pregnancy or that everything would feel so- heightened. I have never been a sad or depressed person, Jane, but I believe that missing you was the most excruciating thing I have ever been through. And you and I have been through some painful events. Anyway, my coworkers had gotten intoxicated and had all left, so I was alone in the bar. Not alone, alone, I had my marshal in a back corner of the bar and one in a car outside. I was never alone. A woman came up to me, we began flirting and then she was kissing me and I was kissing her and she was asking me her place or mine. I woke up in her bed, she was still asleep and I slipped out of the apartment before she awoke, Robyn driving me home."
A nameless, faceless woman in a bar. I could be okay with this. How many times had I done the exact same thing? But my wife was dead, I hadn't left her.
"She is not the affair, Jane, just the precipitating event that led to it."
I nod. This is going to be excruciating. "From there it was okay to bring myself into someone else's bed. Never my own. It was always one night stands and they were few and far between. She was someone I had known for awhile, I considered her a friend. I initiated it with her, but she was the one who kept coming back, who turned into the affair." She paused, the metaphorical wheels in her brain turning. "Although, that is not quite right. She kept coming back and I allowed it, I turned it into an affair. Because she was not cheating on anyone and I was."
My hands push their way through my hair. "Who is she, Maura?" A sliver emanates in my voice, pain already pushing up from the surface.
Maura looks away, she can't yet bear to see my face when she ruins me. Suddenly her hazel eyes meet mine and I know we both need this. "Robyn. It was Robyn."
I begin sobbing. Her fucking Marshal? The one who was supposed to protect her? Guarantee her safety? They were not supposed to take advantage, to sleep with those they were assigned to protect. My hands cover my face as I sob. I hear Maura clear her throat, begin to cry at the pain she was causing me. I hear when she stands up and hovers above me, unsure what to do. And I feel the air move as she begins to reach out to me but is stopped by a voice at the front door.
"Janie? Maura?" It is my mother, with deep concern in her voice. "You guys okay in here?"
Maura leaves the bathroom to go to Angela who she finds in the hallway. I hear the whispers, Maura telling my mother everything is okay as Angela questions the tears she sees in her eyes and the sobs she hears coming from me in the bathroom. My mother just wants to see me, make sure everything is okay. Says we've been in here for almost two hours and Fenway was already bathed and asleep, she left her with Robyn.
I shoot up from my spot in the bathroom at this news and dart to the front living room. Maura and my mother take in my appearance, I must seem crazy to them- a woman on a fiery warpath. My hands are clenched in fists and vibrating against my sides. "Perhaps you should go back with Fenway, Angela. Ask Maxwell to switch out with her, ask that she leave for the evening." Maura's hands are calmly trying to push Angela from her own home, silently pleading that no more explanations are required.
My mother nods. "You two just stay here okay? Fen and I will get comfortable in your bed, Janie. When you are able, come join us, but until then just use mine." She locks eyes with me for a few seconds before leaving, on a mission to relay Maura's request.
Maura closes the door, takes a deep breath before turning back to me and gesturing toward the couch. "Will you sit? So that I may finish?"
Fuck. I think silently, there's more. My body numbly complies and sits on the warm, familiar couch. Maura takes one of the large leather recliners on either side of the couch and fiddles with her hands, a familiar gesture that normally I do.
"You saw some of the home videos, I presume? This means you saw Fenway's birth." She doesn't wait for my slow head nod. "Robyn and I were still intimate up until the delivery. She froze during the birth and I cannot blame her, watching a lover deliver someone else's baby. I realized after Fenway was born, in the silence after everyone had left, as I counted all ten of her perfect fingers and toes that what I had done was wrong. I ended it the minute I was home from the hospital. I was celibate for a year after Fenway was born, after that it was just one night stands with random women in bars."
She gets up to pace in front of me, her hands must have been sloughing off skin layers with all the friction. So she'd had an affair. More than two years ago for a period of months, but now it was long over. I could forgive this, move past this.
"So you had an affair that lasted what? Maybe four months?"
"Approximately." She says as she stops pacing, noticing the sly smile on my face. "Jane, this is not humorous. I cheated on you! I had an affair!" Now it is her turn to begin sobbing.
I cross the small space to place my hands on each of Maura's biceps. "You met needs that I was not around to meet for you. You were carrying our child and your hormones were everywhere. This isn't something I can or will forgive easily, Maura, but it wasn't done maliciously." Her hazel eyes look up to meet mine, the tears still streaming down. A hand wipes away tears as she shudders in a breath, her whole body vibrating beneath my hands.
There is so much hurt here, between the two of us. Hurt that we've done to each other, nothing done from outsiders. It shows the miracle that Maura and I are that we've been able to move past and forgive so much. I think this will be something I have to work on for awhile, and I know it will cause Maura extreme pain up until the day we both sense it leave my body and mind. She collapses against my body and I stand holding her in the near darkness of my mother's house.