A/N: OK so italics in the beginning of each chapter constitute flashbacks. In dialogue, italics are also used periodically to emphasize, and to denote Sicilian or a Sicilian accent. Thank you for all of your engagement so far!

Maura Doyle smooths over her ready-to-wear Prada spring collection: an all black three-quarter sleeve top, impeccably sewn, with an all black patterned skirt. Strappy heels complete the evening ensemble, and she pops her lips in approval, spreading her gloss more evenly. The mirror in her Villa Monreale room speaks her beauty back to her, provides her with the empirical evidence that bolsters her hypothesis: she looks best with Italian wrapped around her. This specific Italian hugs and drapes in all the right places, accentuating the highlights of her body that are toned with exercise and by her young age.

But the Italian putting a smile on her face and pasting the blush on the bridge of her nose that brings out her light freckles… that's Jane. The night before, Jane had been charming, and accommodating, and delightfully Bostonian. She had also provided a pop of androgyny amongst all the drab machismo in the room - Maura had found that incredibly sexy. They had chatted all throughout dinner, and managed, through shrewd number crunching and some sweet talk, to procure a lucrative deal for her Irish father and Jane's Italian bosses. Don Antoninu had been impressed by their teamwork, and so had Maura.

Jane had seemed so at home with it all, as if she were not at all surprised that Maura fit into her world. Jane had been at home in the shorthand they shared, as daughters of a very specific New England enterprise. After their meal, Jane had asked where Maura was staying. When Maura answered with the Villa, Jane only raised her eyebrows twice and said, "fancy. I'll walk you home."

And she did.

Maura had wanted to kiss her then. Jane had looked like she knew, and only smiled. Then she asked Maura if she wanted to go out and get gelatu the next night. Maura had agreed emphatically.

Which is why she stands ready now, in her suite at 8PM, appraising herself in designer and fantasizing about what Jane's head would look like between her legs. The call from the front desk rouses her from her reverie, and as a last moment impulse, she pulls up her skirt and removes her thong just before she leaves the room. It is already heavy with wetness when she tosses it onto her suitcase.

When she reaches the lobby area, small and distinctly Italian with the 1930s key system behind the front desk, she has tamed her features into a flirty calm, rather than the blaze of arousal from before. "Hi," she says to Jane's back, because Jane is looking out the window of the building toward the street.

Jane jumps, reaches for a firearm that isn't there, at least not visibly, then turns and smiles with closed lips in return. "Hey kid," she replies, eyes soft and crinkled on each side.

It sounds so handsome to Maura, so hoarse and smooth at once, that she nearly suggests they forego the ice cream altogether and get more acquainted with her bed. She tells herself that it's because she's been away from home for a week and Jane talks in a way she never thought she'd miss hearing. "Don't call me kid," she says, not because she dislikes it, but because she needs to put some distance between them.

"Sorry," Jane apologizes like she doesn't actually mean it, because she knows that Maura doesn't mean it, either. She wears black pants, tight like the ones she wore the previous evening, but this time with a Navy tee, collar hugging her throat tight. Maura can see the thin gold chain snaking around the back of her neck, the St. Lucia pendant a feminine touch to Jane's brusque demeanor, one that Maura had first noticed on their walk home last night. "You ready?" Jane drags her gaze from the top of Maura's head to her toes, and then up again.

Maura agonizes in its slowness, and how she is splayed beneath it. She wants to open herself up even further. "I am. Lead the way?"

"Certu," Jane teases, of course. She holds out her elbow and Maura takes it. "This place is small, but the gelatu is the creamiest in the city. Sicilian dairy farmers bus the milk over every morning."

This excites Maura, distracts her. "You know, I've often wondered why we don't have more of the same in New England. We have over a thousand dairy farms."

Jane shrugs. "Way too commercial. Things here operate like they did in America like fifty years ago. Go out to the towns, and it's like goin' back a hundred years. I can only imagine what it was like an actual century ago. I see why my grandparents left."

"Are your grandparents from Messina?" Maura asks. They pass a few shops, and a bank on the corner before turning onto a much narrower sidestreet.

"From Savoca," Jane answers.

Maura wants to lace their fingers, but settles for staying safe. "Ah. Hence Santa Lucia," she says.

"How much information you got up there?" Jane scoffs good-naturedly, using her free hand to knock on Maura's head.

Maura bites her lip to stifle the smile threatening to spread. "A lot."

"Humble, too, huh?" Jane says, chuckling.

"I've never seen the point in it," Maura counters. "My parents spent a lot on my education, and passed on some pretty ideal genetic traits. If I shied away from that, I'd be dishonoring them, I think."

"Whew, that is the most catholic shit I have ever heard," Jane whistles.

"Actually, I'm non-believing," Maura clarifies as they step up to the ice cream storefront. There's a diminutive, plump cow on their sign, below which are written the specials of the week.

"Doesn't matter. It's not just a belief system, it's a guilt-ridden, duty-bound way of life," Jane says. The pithiness of it stops Maura in her tracks. Jane walks up to the counter. "Mind if I order for us?" she asks.

Maura shakes her head silently.

"Dui du ciocculattu, pi fauri," Jane switches into Sicilian when she orders from the young kid behind the counter. He raises his eyebrow ever-so-slightly, and then asks her, back so soon? Jane shrugs and tells him that his product can't be beat. He smiles, says no more, and hands her two cups full of the velvetiest gelatu that Maura has ever seen, spoons sticking right out of the tops. Jane ushers them to a small foldable table outside, under a string of Edison lights made more brilliant by the setting sun.

Maura takes her treat gratefully and holds a spoonful up to her mouth just before she speaks. "You two seem friendly," she says. Jane laughs. "What?" asks Maura, afraid she's misunderstood some social more.

"Afraid I'm gonna run back to the gelatu kid after we finish for the night?" Jane quips. She scoops a hefty amount of gelatu in her mouth and moans at the taste.

"No!" Maura answers back a little too loudly. "We're not, I'm not saying-"

"Relax, Maura. Just teasin'," Jane winks. Maura gulps at her own skyrocketing heart rate. "He likes to pull my leg. Clocked me as American the first day I came to the shop."

Maura is thankful for the diversion. "Was it your clothes?"

Jane looks down at her attire. "What's wrong with my clothes?" she gripes. "No, it was my accent."

"You sound like a native speaker," Maura says. It's one of the things about Jane that impresses her the most.

"I kinda am," Jane confirms. "But from like eighty years ago. He said I sound like his grandma. Sometimes he'll call me nanna just to get under my skin." She scoots her rickety chair closer to Maura, not at all ashamed to do it, either. Maura leans in helplessly. "Well? How do you like it?" Jane asks.

"Huh?" Maura hums, because Jane's face is so close to her own and there's a little bit of creamy chocolate just above the cupid's bow of her lip, and Maura wants to lick it off. She refrains, thankfully. But that takes all of her cognitive capacity.

"Lu gelatu," Jane clarifies. "Ti piaci?" Do you like it?

"Diliziusu," Maura answers. Delicious. She all but sees the shiver run down Jane's spine.

"I'll say," Jane says, and Maura suspects it's not just about the ice cream. "Tell me somethin', Maura."

"Almost anything," Maura replies.

Jane blushes. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Maura says. In all of her twenty-three years, she can't think of one person she should trust less. She also can't think of one person she trusts more. Instinctually. Stupidly. Intoxicatingly.

"Well, how come a smart, pretty, rich girl like you works for your gangster Pop? You could do anything you wanted. You're a doctor," Jane says.

"I am. And I don't really work for my father. Like I said last night, I told him I would do him this favor because I happen to be where he needed someone to be. That isn't to say I haven't… occasionally balanced a book or calculated an interest payment for him before. It's hard not to," Maura responds around a bite of gelatu. "But I am singularly focused on my goal of finishing residency."

"I hear you. My dad… he runs a book for the Taluccis. So, I know doctorin' is like, it for you, but… you don't… you don't mind being around those of us who are, you know, in the life?" Jane investigates something, wants to know something. Maura hears it in her hesitations.

"How could I? The life is what afforded me all my opportunities," Maura says. "It's all I've known. I know it's not… easy to explain or describe. But for all my father's faults, for all the things he's done and all the tension between us, he taught me a lot of what I know."

"You don't really get along, huh?" Jane presses. This surprises her. She definitely would have assumed Maura was a Daddy's Girl by the way she moved, dressed, carried herself.

"We… we used to. My father was my best friend. It used to be my mother that I butted heads with, you know? Because we're so alike," Maura explains. "But Paddy, he, he had an affair. An affair that gave us Colin. And while I love my brother, his existence caused a lot of strife between the three of us, my parents and I. Paddy kept him a secret until he was about five. Which means I was ten. When I was teenager, a lot of the drama of that situation came to light and I resented him. We fight more now - have a hard time seeing eye to eye."

Jane shakes her head. "I didn't know Colin wasn't Dr. Doyle's," is all that she can say.

"No," Maura says. "His mother is not in the picture. My mother treats him the best she can, but it's clear that she… it's complicated."

"I can imagine," Jane commisserates. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dredge up…"

"Don't be," Maura dismisses the apology immediately.

Jane accepts that, and they talk for another hour, long after their dessert is finished. The walk back to Villa Monreale is quiet, but not awkwardly so. Maura expends so much energy avoiding the kiss at the forefront of her mind, that she forgets to talk until they are standing at the door of her upscale hotel. "We're here," Jane says kindly, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Her minimal, dark eye makeup paints her as even more mysterious than she is.

Maura's amygdala roars into overdrive. She steps into Jane's space. "We are."

Jane raises an eyebrow as she looks down into Maura's eyes. "What're you thinkin'? When you look at me like that?"

"Mostly, I'm thinking that you're handsome, and that you'd be a very suitable mate," Maura answers honestly.

Jane guffaws and her laughter echoes off the nearby residential buildings. "Even though I can't knock you up?"

Maura shrugs. It isn't the rejection that the most insecure parts of her feared. "Does it matter? My primitive brain thinks you can. Want to go upstairs and try?"

"Hell yes," Jane says seriously, concentration all over her features when she opens the door for Maura to step in.

Maura Rizzoli hops out of her sleek, black Mercedes, just outside The Dirty Robber. It is a Tuesday afternoon, and she thinks the bar looks especially drab in the daylight. The stained glass windows, fraying booth seats, and barstool scuffed floors, all combine to evoke in her a Pavlovian response of stress. Of annoyance, particularly with her father. She pushes her Gucci sunglasses above her eyes to sit atop her head, and carries her Birkin bag with grace on her elbow. She wears a billowy black blouse with white polka dots, with burgundy pants and flats. She has topped it off with an extra spritz of Carthusia Gelsomini di Capri, infusing her skin with notes of jasmine and Mediterranean Citrus just to rile Paddy. He has never mentioned it, but when he smells Italy on her, she knows it signals to him that she is no longer his, and it thrills the pettiest parts of her.

She has known Colin is her brother for thirty-two years, and still, she seeks adolescent satisfaction in those little jabs of revenge. She steps in, fortified, and waves to Murray prepping for the night , she sees Paddy at the bar of the empty establishment, wrapping up a conversation with Carlo Talucci.

"Hey, Maura, how ya doin'?" Carlo notices her, and stands. He is large, about 6'4", and bulky. He is raven-haired and green eyed, and is named after his mother, Angela Rizzoli's best friend Carla. He also reports directly to Tom and Mario DiVincenzo, acting, despite no orders to do so, as de facto boss of their family while they do time in prison.

Maura knows not to snub him. She smiles warmly, albeit professionally. "Carlo, hi. How are Alessandra, the kids?"

"They're wonderful, thank you," he nods to her, grateful that she has asked. It's a very Italian exchange. "Mikey's very smitten with your Cristina, you know. He talks about her all the time."

Maura looks indifferent, but not displeased. "Well, Jane's told her she's not allowed to date until she's married, so I don't know if their love is already doomed, but she talks about him, too."

Carlo's lip curls for just a split second at the mention of Jane. "And Janie, how is she? She's uh, been workin' like a dog."

Maura wonders what exactly he means, remembers it to ask Jane later. "She's busy. Very dedicated to creating the best future for her children that she can. You two are alike in that way."

Carlo is assuaged by the compliment. "That is true. Listen, Paddy, I gotta run. But think about what I proposed, a'right?" he turns from Paddy to Maura. "Maura, it was good seein' you. Give Angela and the kids my love."

She nods and accepts his kiss on her cheek, but doesn't give him one back. Once he leaves, Paddy stands and gives her that same kiss. "You walked in just as a pretty tense moment was ending."

"Most moments with the Taluccis are tense," Maura quips. "They're… unpleasant people."

Paddy smirks to himself, reaches into his slacks for his keys so that he can open the bottle of beer that Murray has placed in front of him. "You seem to get along with him just fine," he says, a note of pride in his voice.

"I have to," Maura asserts. "My wife runs a crew alongside his own."

"I have to, too," says Paddy. "Business overseas runs through them now that Tom and Mario are away." He takes a swig. "But, he's not making it easy. He's shaking me down for an extra three percent, claims that cars are getting harder to come by so the shop needs the capital. I don't know if he's got another supply lined up if I say no, but it seems like he could. Not sure how things will go if he creates friction between me and the Italians."

Maura sighs, places her purse on the freshly cleaned bar and then takes a seat. "He's already causing friction in my pocket. He told Jane to put Gaetano Campusano in charge of Desiderio, and now it's losing money. That club used to pay for my house by itself."

Paddy raises one eyebrow. "Why did he do that?"

"The Campusanos are friendly with him, and in need of money, so much more likely to do his bidding," Maura says. "Jane is loved by the DiVincenzos, and is well off, so she won't."

"Do the math, huh?" Paddy gruffs. "What's Jane gonna do?"

"What she has to?" Maura shrugs. "We met with Gaetano last week. Put him on a payment plan and sent one of Jane's more trusted associates over to figure out what exactly is causing the reversal of fortune. We are hoping that it doesn't get ugly." She refuses a glass of wine that Murray brings over to her. He runs a hand over the towel on his burly shoulder and puts the glass under the bar, unfazed.

"You know, after all this time, it's still a little strange to me that you're in this at all, let alone working for the Patriarca family," Paddy replies glibly. He doesn't look at her.

But she looks right at him. "What do you mean?" she asks, eyebrow curled very high and voice a little louder than before.

"We thought you'd be a doctor, is all," Paddy answers. "Not that-"

"I am a doctor," Maura shoots back. "I have the license to prove it."

"You know what I mean," Paddy says, "a doctor like your mother. With a practice and patients. Uninvolved, on the straight-and-narrow, like her."

"You talk very highly of Mom, you know. Which is why it's so hard to understand how you could step out on her and have a whole other child without her knowing," Maura spits. "And she's not innocent in all this, Dad. She has looked the other way for you for over forty years. I work with Jane. And there are no secrets - We know each other. Completely. The good and the bad. Our lives face one another, whereas Mom's looking over your shoulder constantly, wondering if you're betraying her every night you don't come home. I much prefer my way." She gets up, snatches her bag, and pulls out a large white envelope stuffed with cash. She pushes it against his chest.

"Maura, c'mon," Paddy pleads, in the way that means he's been drinking. "I didn't-"

She turns back to look at him on her way out. "Your share for the Southie apartment complex. Jane and Frankie have union contacts, and construction is already well underway. Thank you for your investment," she says coldly, leaving her father to stare at her as she makes her way through the door and to her car.

Cristina Rizzoli rolls over in her bed so that she is on her stomach, now in low-rise sweatpants and one of Jane's oversized crew neck sweaters, a faded navy blue with the white Nike swoosh over the left breast. She has her hair on top of her head in a loose bun, and chews the cap of a highlighter as she looks over at her desk.

Mikey Talucci sits there, using his pretty-boy blue eyes to pore over his copy of Ethan Frome, the very New England novel that their teacher has chosen for them to analyze this quarter. He holds a highlighter, too, and when he grips it, his biceps flex under the crisp white sleeve of his Armani tee. All of that aggressive intent has nowhere to go, however, because he can't find anything to highlight. He finally rocks back in her foldable chair, tapping his back against his black hoodie that's draped over the back of it. "I just don't get it," he laments, palming his forehead, careful not to disturb the pomade in his luscious black hair. "The way they describe the town is so fucking snowy and boring. What about that is supposed to speak to me, huh?"

Cristina rolls her eyes and gets up, padding on the wood floor until she reaches the other chair next to her desk. She leans in, smelling an awful lot like her mother's Carthusia when her collar pops with the movement, reminding her of the quick two sprays she gave herself when Mikey rang the doorbell. She blushes, wondering if her brother could sniff it out when she slid past him in the hall so that she could get to the door first. Oh well. "Ok, so think about when we had to do that How to Read Literature Like a Professor book. Remember the chapter on imagery? Wharton is making everything bleak and snowy on purpose. She's trying to capture New England and make it stand in for Ethan's life."

Mikey scoffs. He glances to her chest and then quickly back up to her eyes. "C'mon. That's not the New England we know, Crissy." His eyes got wet and teasing when she smirked at her.

"Don't call me Crissy," Cristina says. She pulls back and rubs her lips together, using them to smear her gloss and hide her quickening heartbeat, just like her mother. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"What?" asks Mikey.

"'That's not the New England we know'?" Cristina mimes. "What does that mean?"

"You know... " Mikey shoves his elbow toward her playfully, suddenly bashful about his explanation, "with my pop and your mom… things get pretty fast-paced. Boston's a jungle."

Cristina surveys him for a moment. "Well, that's Boston now. And maybe Boston back then, too, but we're reading about Starkfield. It's even in the name," she turns back to her own copy of the novel and appears to bury her nose in it.

"Yeah I guess," Mikey shrugs, not even sure if he understands. "So… nothing but white around for miles? And that's supposed to mean…"

"The monotony of Ethan's existence, Mikey," Cristina says, huffing and impatient. "Is it that hard?"

He puts his hands up and laughs. "Damn! For me it is, ok? Why do you think I'm flunking English?"

"I think that if you actually tried, you wouldn't be flunking," Cristina teases, curling her upper lip, widening her eyes.

Mikey shakes his head at her funny little face, the one that says she's riding his ass. "Listen, I got a lot more important shit to do than sit around and feel bad for Ethan Frome, a'right?"

"Oh yeah? What could you possibly have going on that's so important, Mr. Talucci?" Cristina asks.

"Well for one, my dad's been asking for my help with some, you know, work stuff. Runnin' some errands and stuff." He rubs the back of his neck and wills her to get what he's saying.

"Your big to-do list is running errands for your dad?" Cristina raises one brow and tsks. "You don't think I got errands, too?"

Mikey sighs. "I dunno, do you?"

"Like what?"

"Like real work shit. Like collecting payments. You don't really do that, right?"

"No… why would I collect payments for my ma?"

Mikey looks at her, and his eyes turn hard, gloss over. "Well maybe because your ma don't want anyone to know where she's goin' or what she's doin'."

"What's that supposed to mean, Mikey?" Cristina asks, and she's annoyed now. "What are you saying?"

"Nothin'." He puts his hands up again. "It's just… this is a family business, this one we're in, Cristina. You don't find it a bit odd that your ma keeps it to herself, doesn't tell you about it? Like what is she hidin'?" He says, clearly parroting lines he has heard from some adult in his circle.

Cristina pushes back on the desk with her feet. "Who says she's hiding anything? And what is it you think she's hiding? Since you seem to have such strong opinions about it," she presses him.

He is about to say more when a knock on the partially closed door startles the both of them. Maura, just back from her meeting with Paddy, sticks her head in and looks right at Cristina. "Door stays all the way open," she says to her. "You know the rules." Cristina sighs and her cheeks color. Maura smirks. "You're lucky it was me that spotted you in here and not your mother."

"You are my mother," Cristina quips, and Mikey chuckles under his breath, eyes darting between the two of them.

"You know what I mean," says Maura. "Your other mother. Try getting cute with her after she's found out you had a boy in your room with the door closed."

"Partially closed, Mommy!" Cristina shouts out of the doorway when Maura walks away.

"All the way open, Cristina!" Maura's sing-song retort echoes through the hall and back to them. She sounds like she's already halfway down the stairs.

Her presence has disrupted the tension. "Your mom is so hot," Mikey says.

Cristina grabs a stuffed cat from the top of her desk and chucks it at him. "Shut up," she hisses. They soon dissolve into laughter.

"Hey Cicciu, pass the bread would ya?" Jane asks her son, who has parked in front of the bread basket, hoping to get most of it to himself on this Sunday evening. He has awkward limbs, skinny and long, like his mother and her brothers did at his age. He looks up from the Rubik's cube he's got at the table, and passes the bowl distractedly.

Jane watches it go through his hands, then Frankie's, then Maura's before reaching her own. She takes a piece and dunks it in her wine, just before taking a bite of spaghetti. Frankie points to it and then beckons her with two fingers, asking for it back. "So, Janie, we got that meeting with uh… the union tomorrow," he says, bread in his mouth shortly after. He speaks in riddles even though everyone at the table except for his niece and nephew know exactly what he's talking about.

Angela and Hope, seated next to each other across from him, exchange a look. Jane chuckles at it. "Yeah… what about it?" she asks, winking at Cristina, caught in between her grandmothers. Instead of her usual lipsmack of commiseration, Cristina looks down at her plate. Fascinated by it, apparently. Jane frowns.

"You think we'll be able to get somethin' done? Or you think we'll have to go back to the drawing board?" Frankie puts his elbows on the table and folds his hands together.

"I think you got the world's foremost expert on Southie sittin' right here," Jane says, "maybe you should just ask him." She nods to the other end of the table, where Paddy sits, running his plate, taciturn as usual.

He looks up, wipes some crumbs from his tucked in black polo shirt, and appraises Frankie for the first time. He smiles. "Well, what kind of figures are we talkin' here? And your in is the plumber's union?"

"Yeah, so-"

Angela Rizzoli interrupts her son. "Ok can we not talk plumbing at the dinner table? The last thing I need to hear about is clogged toilets while I'm eating my salad."

"Clogged toilets are what puts the salad on the table, Ma," Frankie barks.

Angela rolls her eyes. "You sound exactly like your father," she snaps.

"I agree with Angela," Hope Doyle, often just as quiet as her husband around the Rizzolis, pipes up. She touches the broach on her Hermès scarf, the one draped over her shoulders, almost to reassure herself. "I'd like to talk about something different. Work is work, of course. But Sunday's the day of rest, and we should be talking about each other. About things we enjoy."

"I don't mind hearing about work, Grandma," Cristina chimes in. Everyone stops eating to stare at her. "In fact, I'm interested to hear about Ma and Uncle Frankie's jobs."

Frankie puts his hands out in a look at her gesture. "Thank you, T. See? We're interesting."

Angela spears lettuce with her fork. "Plumbing is not interesting. Plumbing is disgusting. And you can talk about it later, when you're not sitting at my table in front of a wonderful meal that I have made. You can do that for me," she huffs.

Frankie gets up out of his chair, just shy of standing up. "It's Maura's table!" he yells. "And she made most of it!"

Jane does stand up. "Hey oh! Leave my wife and kid out of it, would you? Ma wants you to talk about the weather? Suck it up and talk about the weather," she says.

Frankie sits and stares at her, a little wide-eyed. "But Janie-"

"The weather, Frankie," Jane reiterates, but she sits down after that.

"Wherever your father is, if he's alive somewhere-" Angela starts, but Jane cuts her off, too.

"Ma," she points at Angela, and Angela stops. "The weather."

"I saw a lot of nimbostrati today on the way home from the grocery store," Cicciu says, taking the assignment literally. "So I hope you brought your umbrellas."

Maura covers her laughter with her hand. Paddy shakes his head, smirking too.

Jane stands at her dresser just a few hours later, removing her cartier from her wrist, watching Maura take off her heels in the mirror above it. "That was kind of a shit show, huh?" she asks quietly, waiting for Maura to meet her reflection's eyes. Maura does, then moves forward.

She places her hands on Jane's shoulders, rubs softly against the cashmere of Jane's black pullover sweater. Then she straightens the necklace there. "I don't know why your mother sees it fit to ever bring up your father, especially in front of Frankie."

"I know!" says Jane. "Two generations of namesakes sittin' right in front of her. Isn't that enough reminder?"

"You'd think," Maura said, reaching to deposit her own big-faced watch on their stand, right next to Jane's silver, small one. With the other hand, she drums on Jane's scapula. "But apparently not."

"And what was that with Cristina?" Jane waved her arms outward, on a roll now. "She wants to hear about our jobs? In utilities?"

Maura steps over, leans against the dresser, so that she is facing Jane. "That was odd. Do you think she suspects something?"

Jane sighs. "God I don't know. But she's getting old enough that if she asks, I'm gonna have to be able to tell her something. She's way too smart for me to hide everything."

Maura nods, then looks Jane up and down one last time. Bare feet on the luxurious carpet, tapered gray slacks, black top, wild hair falling past her shoulders. Still handsome, still a suitable mate, and now, a thoughtful parent. "You'll know what to say. When the time comes. C'mon. Let's get ready for bed."

Jane obeys, and pulls her sweater over her head.