A/N: This flashback occurs about two and half years after the previous one.
Maura loves the smell of her homemade massage oil blend. The notes of peppermint and chamomile dot the air when she puts just a little on her hands before placing the bottle in the warmer, which is nestled between the double sinks in her bathroom. She reaches back and rubs the excess into the skin on her neck because she's spent most of the last two years looking down - down at tiny Cristina, who grows taller everyday, but who is also still so small.
She lives in this Prince Street condominium now, a far cry from her South Boston apartment: the one she barely inhabited, only owned to get away from her father and to sleep after her shifts at the hospital. For starters, it's massive. They own the top two stories of a five story building, and Jane has intentions of buying the two below and moving in her brother, Tommy. On the first floor is a very old, very well-frequented barber shop, one that has cut the hair of every Patriarca soldier, capo, and boss for the entire existence of the family, Maura learns.
She gets a rush every time she looks out their living room window to see Jane's friends and rivals alike, coming and going in the shop, unable to see her.
And she gets a rush thinking of it now, of how Jane had chosen this home strategically for its placement in the neighborhood. She gets a rush every time she thinks of how Jane's mind orchestrates all aspects of their life. She gets a rush when she thinks of Jane's kindness: her sweet, passionate hands on Maura's body when they're alone in their fortress, the same hands that, just a week prior, slowly wrested the life from Matty O'Rourke's neck for stiffing them. It had been money out of Maura's pocket, Jane reasoned when she came home with blood on her shirt from where he had clipped her eye with his class ring on his way out. And no one takes livelihood from her wife. They have a daughter to think about now - no room for disrespect, Jane had said.
Jane puts murder on her shoulders without a second thought as part of the symphony she is composing for her family.
It's why Maura prepares to rub those shoulders now, to ensure that they can manage the load. It's why Maura wears the lavender satin nightgown that barely drops to mid-thigh. She is just starting to feel attractive enough to wear it again after Cristina, though Jane had told her over and over again how beautiful she was. It's why, as she stretches her neck, metronoming her head from one side to the other and then upright again, tonight will be the night to tell Jane her secret.
She hears the soft beep of the warmer on the counter, pulls the bottle out of it, and then takes a towel from the linen closet. She ventures into the expanse of her master bedroom, and smirks at the sight in her king-sized bed. There is Jane, topless and on her stomach, face illuminated by the soft lamplight by the bedside, and snoring. She may even be drooling on the pillow, a strand of her hair dangerously close to dropping into her open mouth. Maura checks the analog clock on her nightstand before she approaches: 7:48 PM. She sets her supplies next to Jane's head on Jane's nightstand, hoping the soft clink of the glass bottle on the glass top will wake her.
No such luck.
She sits next to Jane on the sliver of mattress that's left, and pushes that strand of hair away. She strokes Jane's ear with her thumb, holding it against her forefinger in a soft grip. "You were supposed to be awake for this," she says quietly, and Jane startles.
Jane snorts and her eyes blow open, unfocused and wide. "Sorry," she gruffs. "I had to read The Day the Crayons Quit four times, and it knocked me out. Not exactly the post-baby sex fantasy you had in mind, I'm sure."
"What? Walking in to you comatose in our bed, after I've prepped an entire evening of debauchery? Not quite," Maura teases. "But there's hope for us yet - I have just the thing to wake you up."
"Oh yeah?" Jane asks, eying the oil on her table. "Because that looks like it's gonna put me right back to sleep."
"That's only part of it," Maura says, and then lifts the hem of her nightgown so that she can swing her leg over Jane's hip. She straddles, and Jane groans.
"Oh," Jane says with salacious realization. She grips the pillow below her and buries her face in it, inhaling to brace herself against the blast of wet heat on the small of her back. "You shoulda told me underwear was optional."
"You should have assumed," Maura counters, snapping the waistband of Jane's boyshorts against her skin. "You're the assumer in this marriage."
"Is assumer a word?" Jane snarks, then melts. "Christ." She writhes against the sheets when firm, surgeon's hands grip her tense muscles.
"Language is fluid, ever changing," Maura says, playing along. She moves from trapezii, to the deep tissue of the infraspinatus, down to the latissimus dorsi. The sight of Jane's slick and pliant skin under her makes her lightheaded. The way she finds friction between her legs with each motion forward makes her very, very horny, in the way only a mother of a two-year-old who never leaves her side can be. She bends her spine so that she can drop her torso, her breasts, as close to Jane's back as she can while still rubbing. There's a sound, a moist, heavy click, that is distinct from the slide of oil against muscle.
"What's that for, huh?" Jane addresses it, moans through her question. "Wet for me?"
"I'm ashamed to say what specifically, but yes. Always for you," Maura breathes out.
Jane chuckles. "I'm gonna guess it has somethin' to do with the O'Rourke problem," she says.
Maura sits back up straight. "It's not a problem anymore, is it?" She tries to concentrate all of her desire in the tips of her fingers, to somehow impart it to Jane.
"You can be attracted to me for my… problem solving skills, you know," Jane says. "I won't tell anyone. You just gotta know I'll never hurt you. Or Cristina."
"I know," Maura replies. "You hurt other people for us. That's what makes it so intoxicating. I told you I couldn't have picked better."
"I didn't think I wanted kids," Jane admits, made pliant by Maura's frankness and her talented hands alike. "But now that she's here, and havin' her with you… I'd do anything. Not just to keep her safe. But to make sure she wants for nothin'. You, Tina, you're never gonna want for nothin', ever. I'll strangle the whole goddamn O'Rourke crew before I ever let someone take food outta your mouths again."
"I need to tell you something." After Jane's confession, Maura can wait no longer: she has one of her own. "I'm pregnant."
Jane lifts her torso off the bed so quickly Maura is nearly thrown into the air. "Shit, sorry," says Jane, laying back down again. "But what did you just say to me?"
Maura sees a flash of deep hurt in Jane's eyes for a moment, one she tries to bury as soon as it surfaces, but she is unsuccessful. "Oh no, no, no," Maura rushes to explain. "Not… not Andrea Lucchesi. Do you remember when we conceived Cristina? And how we had to fertilize all the eggs at once, and freeze the ones we didn't use? I was… impulsive, and I went to see our obstetrician. But I did it because you said that you wanted more. And then I realized that I really, really wanted more."
Jane sighs dramatically. "Oh thank god. For a second you had me thinking that I made the biggest mistake of my life by askin' you to cozy up to one of my enemies. So…" she trails off, and this time, Maura hears the squeal of girlish happiness threatening to burst through, "it's from the same batch as Cristina?"
"Batch isn't quite the right word," Maura chuckles, growing giddier with Jane's giddiness by the second, "but yes he is."
Jane stiffens. At first, Maura thinks she may be displeased. But then she hears the timid joy, just behind that girlish squeal. Neither bubble to the surface, but they are there in Jane's voice. "H-he? You're havin' a boy?"
"We are. The beauty of the way we decided to have children is that we get to do just that. Decide," Maura replies, using her hands to resume soft circles on Jane's shoulders, just so that she can hide the shaking. Relief floods her system, washes out the nervousness she didn't realize she had been holding onto. "And I… made an executive decision."
"I love when you do that," Jane quips. "But I think this might be my favorite one," she says. "A son."
"A son," repeats Maura, "that is definitely not a Lucchesi. You need to trust me more."
"Soon as we get confirmation that he and O'Rourke were pushin' me out so he could get my cut, he's a goner, too," Jane growls into the pillow, mostly at the thought that Maura would have ever slept with the man she was surveilling. Synovial fluid releases when Maura presses on a particularly stubborn spot of her neck, and it's a prelude to the violence she threatens.
"Mommy?"
There is a tiny, sleepy voice, from the doorway, and both Jane and Maura snap their heads to look in that direction. They hope, when they see Cristina standing there, rubbing at her eyes to banish both sleep and tears, that she has only heard cracking joints, and not her parents' more barbaric plans.
Maura dismounts immediately and that leaves Jane to snatch the covers up around her upper body. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" Maura asks, already to the threshold and gathering their toddler in her arms.
"It's dark," Cristina crinkles her nose at the slippery feeling of Maura's hand on her arm as she holds her, already dysregulated from her apparent nightmare. "There's a monster."
"I'll bet it's scary - your brain is growing very quickly and telling you lots of frightening things. But, monsters aren't real, honey," Maura says in her best attempt to calm their agitated child, but Cristina only resists this by pushing her head closer to Maura's chest, refusing to be comforted by her words.
Jane snatches a shirt from the other side of the room and yanks it on. "No, they're not. Mommy's right. But I'm still gonna check, a'right? Make sure the coast is clear." She goes to them, takes Cristina's head in one of her large hands and kisses it tiredly.
Maura follows her out the door and down the hall with Cristina in tow, confident that if there is a monster in their two-year-old's room, Jane will vanquish it.
Though Pisa is not far from her home, Maura drives the Mercedes to it anyway, at Jane's insistence that she walk nowhere in the North End alone. They are too important, insists Jane, and anything more than a couple of blocks should be traversed in the safety of a car. Maura's environmentally-conscious mind resists, but her married-to-a-shadow-capo mind is inclined to agree.
Besides, her mission this evening requires the utmost discretion: she cannot be seen on the street wearing what she is wearing now. Her look consists of a black coat, with a skintight navy dress underneath. The hem reaches just above the knee, the sleeves are half-sleeves, and the neckline plunges tastefully, but it's the fit of it that makes it killer. None of her shape is left to the imagination, and the sheer black tights she wears on her legs are a mockery of coverage - but they do go well with her black heels and the way she wears her long, full, brown-blonde hair around her shoulders.
The restaurant does not have a valet booth, but she anticipated this: she parks in the spot right behind the person she is here to meet, one of two or three reserved for people in her line of work. All the better, because she knows that she looks dangerous and divine stepping out of her foreign car in her foreign clothes, and the people in the window of the restaurant can see her. She engages the alarm, and then makes her way to the door, imbuing her hips with extra sway when she pushes it open.
The chatter of a full dining room reaches her as soon as she enters, and she scans all the seated patrons, both at tables and at the bar, before she spots Giovanni Gilberti by himself to the left. She smiles at the hostess and points wordlessly in that direction.
The hostess nods her through, smiles back, but Maura is already on her way. She takes care to walk in his line of vision, but not obviously toward his table. She weaves through the front and keeps close to the bar, pretending to check her phone and frown.
"Maura!" He calls her name, having just noticed her. She doesn't respond the first time, and then opens up her phone as if to type out a reply to some message. "Maura!" he says again, louder, and this time, she catches his gaze. She uses all of her research of facial expression to register pleasant surprise, and then she waves to him. He slicks back his hair, stands up, and beckons her over.
She goes, and he walks over to the other side of the table to pull the chair out for her. "Thank you," she says.
"Can't say I expected to run into ya tonight," he replies. "How're you, how're things? You look great. Date with Janie?"
Maura smirks privately, and then looks down, as if wistful. "Thank you. No, not with Jane," she phrases it ambiguously on purpose. "I was supposed to meet an associate of my father's, but he texted last minute to cancel."
"Oh, that's why you were lookin' outta sorts just now? Well, his loss," Giovanni says, putting his napkin back on his lap and scooting in. "You uh, you always dress this hot for business dinners?"
Maura licks her lower lip and places her clutch on the table next to the empty place setting. It draws attention to the plate like she wanted it to, and Giovanni flags for a waiter immediately, pointing to the plate in front of her. "I like to look presentable in all situations, yes," she obfuscates. She doesn't tell him that she dressed this way specifically for his benefit, and specifically at Jane's behest.
"Well, it's workin' for ya," he says, like he can't quite let it go.
She lets his eyes roam over her, and crosses her legs to help him out, show a little more skin beneath the trappings. "And what about you, Giovanni? How are you?" Just as she asks, the waiter approaches. "Lu tonnu," she tells him. He smiles at her, having seen her in here before, and nods. The seared tuna with the risotto is her favorite - she adores the way the chef uses Sicilian pesto. He leaves them to their conversation, and Maura sets her sights back on Giovanni.
Giovanni gulps, then gives her a lopsided grin. "I'm doin' real good," he says, and his voice gets deeper.
Maura admits to herself that he is handsome. He has beautiful, wavy brown hair, fair Italian facial features, and the torso of a statue. He mirrors Jane and Tommy in a lot of ways, especially with their long limbs and trim midsections - he just happens to lack the Rizzoli mind, and she, despite her better angels, takes his order of plain spaghetti and butter at one of the best Italian restaurants in the city as proof. She doesn't show it, though, when she leans forward, eyes only on him. "I'm glad to hear it. Work is good?"
He pours her some wine from the bottle he had delivered to his table. It's a red that she enjoys, thank goodness. "Have a drink with me, huh? Let's salvage your night somehow," he overfills it, and now the wine won't breathe properly. She takes one requisite sip. Giovanni is pleased by it. "I can't complain," he says. "Talucci business is growin'."
"Hmm," Maura sips again, and she feigns being impressed. "And you're growing along with it."
He leans in, just like her, and smirks flirtatiously. "I'm wettin' my beak in a few places, yeah. One of 'em is runnin' union traffic for this car business Carlo and your Pop got goin' at the docks."
"I see." Real Maura bristles momentarily, but then she fingers the diamond necklace on her chest, pulling it from left to right and back again. It works; he stares at the tops of her breasts in that dress. "That must be a lucrative position."
Giovanni laughs. "Lemme be honest, babe. It's more money than I've ever seen in my life," he says. "I see why Janie does this. And I sewed my wild oats and stuff, did some crazy shit in my twenties, while she was workin' her ass off. I can admit now that I shoulda had my head in the game back then. So you're lucky," he tells her. There are sparks of jealousy there, even as he smiles. "You latched onto someone smart."
It is the truth and sounds insulting all at once. Maura lets it slide, given the plain spaghetti situation and what it signifies about his intelligence to her. Her plate comes, and she prepares herself for the performance she is about to give. She cuts her tuna thoughtfully, scoops some risotto onto it with her knife before she puts it into her mouth. She waits, sighs, and then glances at him briefly. "No one's life is perfect," she says cryptically. "Jane's not perfect."
Giovanni shrugs, frowning in assent to the idea. "I mean, that's true. I think she fucked up with Desiderio, Maura. Teresa was pissed, and Carlo was even more pissed. It took money outta his pocket. And this whole apartment thing? He's hurt that she didn't even think of him, especially given his new position."
Maura grows hot with anger on behalf of Jane, and decides that this is the moment that she must pause her endeavor for the night. Any more, and she risks shattering her facade. He refers to Carlo minting himself as a de facto underboss, but the DiVincenzo's didn't give him that title, nor the authority to go along with it. Carlo wants Jane under his thumb, and the power grab makes Maura want to hurt him. Flirting is safe; information gathering is not, at least not when she is this emotionally charged. "He's not...I can see that," she says diplomatically, catching herself. "But I'm excited to see you flourishing, Gio. You deserve it." Of course she doesn't mean it, but he eats it up, and stays in the palm of her hand for the rest of their dinner.
When she gets home, she tells Jane all about it as they lay in bed.
Jane has been home from a planned trip to New York only since late the previous evening after her whole family had gone to sleep. She went to see the bosses there and pay New England's respects in the absence of Tom and Mario, and had to clean up the mess that a vacuum of power tends to leave with a family's associates.
She needs relaxation.
Luckily, this Saturday afternoon, she has her feet up on her mother's glass coffee table, and she sips the beer in her hand while she and Frankie watch playoff baseball on the living room TV. He sits on the other side of the couch and twists off the cap of his own beverage. They both wear Red Sox tops, Frankie in a navy t-shirt, Jane in a gray hoodie that reads Boston in Red Sox lettering across the chest, despite the fact that the Sox have been eliminated from the pennant race.
The clouds outside foretell rain, and she hopes that her mother and Maura make it back from the market before the downpour begins. The grocery is close to Angela's Revere home - the one Frank had bought for her shortly after the kids had moved out and before he skipped town - and it carries a lot of the more regional items needed for Rizzoli cooking.
The neighborhood isn't the North End, but it's quiet and has enough Italians to feel like home. And an added bonus? Only the mothers of made men live here, and so business takes a back seat when Jane comes out for dinner. She looks over at Cicciu, next to Frankie and leaning against him, immersed in his own baseball world of athleticism and statistics, and it brings her peace.
"Is it sacrilege to root for the White Sox?" Cicciu asks breezily.
Jane chuckles, and then Frankie does, too. "Kinda. But we're out of it, and what people don't know won't hurt 'em, right? Besides, it'd be even worse to be rooting for the Rays in this series," says Frankie.
"That's good," says Cicciu. He tucks his legs, covered in black St. John's sweatpants, until his knees hit his chest and he hugs them. "'Cause I think Tim Anderson is just… neat. I dunno."
Jane and Frankie laugh all out this time. They're used to Cicciu's linguistic quirks, but he still manages to tickle them often. That and they want to tease him for the far-off, dreamy look in his eye when he watches the Chicago shortstop stride up to the plate.
Cristina's voice breaks it up, however. "Ma!" she shouts, shuffling from the dining table, through the kitchen, and then to the living room. She has a Macbook in her hands. "Can you look over my presentation for Italian, please? I want to make sure I don't get anything wrong."
Jane rocks forward to put her feet on the carpet and her beer on a coaster. "Sure thing, baby, bring it over." To her surprise, Cristina comes over to her side and leans into it, putting the computer in Jane's lap and all but forcing Jane's arm around her shoulders.
Cicciu takes that as his cue to rummage around the kitchen for a snack, and Frankie steals a glance towards the two of them as they tune out the game. "You takin' Italian, kid?" he asks.
"Mmhmm," Cristina says. She points to the slide she's currently on and looks up at Jane. "See this? La trinacria sia un antico simbolo religioso orientale che rappresentava il dio del sole nella sua triplice forma di primavera, estate e inverno," she reads her writing. The trinacria was an ancient western religious symbol that represented the god of the sun in his three forms: spring, summer, and winter. "Is that true? All the places I read that weren't Sicilian. It was actually hard to find anything about it not from like, Roman scholars or something."
Jane scratches her head. "Putevanu simbuliggiari na trinità, no? La cursa du tempu, lu giru annuali, cotinuu da natura…" It could've symbolized a trinity, no? The course of time, the year, nature...
Frankie shrugs. "I mean that's what we were told, but who knows. It's some Greek thing, right? Like the Spartans brought it over."
"Ok wait, wait. What did you say?" Cristina asks Jane. "Slow down."
"I said it's supposed to represent time. Like the running legs are the, I don't know, the unyielding course of time, or the year," Jane explains. "Keep in mind this is only what was passed down to us at the kitchen table, kid. Not scholarship."
"Ok, but how do I say that in Italian?" Cristina sighs, head growing heavier on Jane's shoulder.
"I just told you," Jane replies.
"No. Like… you know. Italian Italian. I can't write this in Sicilian. I don't even know Sicilian," says Cristina.
"Oh. Sorry, babe. But I think Mommy's the one you're gonna have to ask about this one. Or Uncle Tommy. He studied a little bit in high school," Jane apologizes, afraid that her inability to deliver will drive Cristina away.
But strangely, Cristina stays. "Mommy isn't here and neither is Uncle Tommy," she whines.
"Yeah well, you can ask her when she gets home, soon. Tommy's another story," says Jane.
"Yeah, you can ask him if your paper isn't due for another eight months," jokes Frankie. There brother is doing time for not snitching on a member of his crew.
"What're you doin' homework on a Saturday for anyway, huh? Put this away, relax a little bit. Watch the game," Jane ignores Frankie's quip, and Cristina shrugs just before closing her laptop and putting it on the table.
"Baseball is boring," says Cristina. "I think Cicciu is eating all the meats." She gets up after one last close squeeze to her mother, and goes to investigate.
"You wound me, T!" Jane calls behind her, where Cristina has walked to the kitchen. She picks up her beer and sips from it.
"I know I'll lose cool points, but-" Frankie starts.
"Cool points?" Jane asks, nearly spitting out her beer.
"Yeah, cool points. But I hope Lola still wants to snuggle with me on the couch when she's 16," he says honestly.
"She usually doesn't. But lately she has been. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complainin', but it's strange. She's been so independent and headstrong for so long, it makes me think she's feelin' off," Jane whispers, so that her children cannot hear.
Frankie shrugs. "Well, if she is, at least she's pullin' you close instead of pushin' you away, right?"
"That's true," Jane admits.
Before their conversation can continue, the front door swings open, and they hear their mother's theatrical sigh. "Oh, we're home! God the market was a nightmare. At 3:30! Who goes to the store at 3:30?" she asks even though she and Maura were at the market at that exact hour, doing exactly the same thing as everyone else there.
Jane gets up and chooses not to address Angela's outlandishness. "Hey, Ma," she says, holding her hand out for the couple of bags in Angela's hands.
Angela gives them to her and with her newly freed fingers, takes Jane's face so she can kiss it repeatedly. "Hi, baby. How was your trip?"
"Good. Glad it's over," says Jane. She winks at Maura, who is just behind Angela, and looks as though she's weathered a hurricane. Shopping with Angela for dinner might actually be worse. Jane takes Maura's bags, too, and replaces them with a kiss of her own. This one is softer, warmer, and on the lips instead of her cheek. This is also the first time they're seeing one another, really, since Jane had to be up early, before Maura woke, to accompany Frankie to Desiderio for some payroll issues.
"We're glad you're back," says Maura. Frankie follows the three women into the kitchen and helps his sister take out the chicken thighs and the sausage for the scarpariello. "Did it go well?"
"Yeah, I think so," Jane says. She washes her hands at the sink and looks around for her children before continuing. They have moved into the living room, sensing the open TV. Cicciu has probably gone to protect the baseball broadcast, Cristina intent on changing it. "Leave that game on!" she shouts at them. Then she gets a dutch oven from the cupboard so that her mother can start the chicken. "Since Tom and Mario have been away, no one's been down to see the New York guys. I think I went just in time, honestly. Johnny wasn't too happy about the radio silence from our side."
Frankie scoffs. "Carlo wants to be boss so bad he's forgetting to act like one," he growls. "He want another all-out war?"
"He seems so concerned with consolidating power while the brothers are away that he's not thinking of long-term implications," Maura says. She takes a cherry pepper from the jar of home-pickled ones they get from Gioiosa, the butcher shop and store that they frequent, and pops it in her mouth. Perfection: this batch of chicken scarpariello will be good.
"Ok, ok, how many times do I have to say this?" Angela butts in after seasoning the chicken. She rolls her shoulder under her Patriots hoodie, shaking her head. "I'm glad you're home, and I'm glad you're all here," she says, pointing a knife to all three of them. "But do you have to talk business? It's the weekend, and you work yourselves to the bone. You know I'll always protect you, and your… secrets. But the kids are here, and I'd really prefer it if we shelve all the Machiavelli talk during family time, a'right?"
Jane sighs. "Yeah, Ma. Sorry," she apologizes. She bites her lips and Frankie does the same.
Maura does them the favor of pulling a bottle of wine from one of the other bags on the counter and readying four glasses.
Frankie is stuffed. He is back on the couch, watching postgame coverage, and Cicciu sits next to him again. The lamplight glows warmly around them, and they listen to the four women conversing in the kitchen, not really hearing words, but comforted by the voices nonetheless.
"That was a clutch double play," Cicciu comments, with his Rubik's cube in his hand. He is trying to decrease his solve time, so he carries it with him everywhere.
"Changed the whole make-up of the game," Frankie agrees. "So it's tied up at one apiece; who you got takin' the series?"
Cicciu looks up and smirks. "I don't think I can answer that objectively," he says.
Frankie laughs. "Me either. But answer subjectively, then. Who ya got?"
"I think the White Sox have more thump in their lineup. I love stats as much as… no, probably more than the next guy, but I think they have more magic in 'em."
"Because of TA?" Frankie teases, knocking his elbow into Cicciu. Cicciu blushes crimson. "Listen, it could be worse. Your Ma had a crush on Bill Buckner when we were kids."
"A lot worse, then," Cicciu says, a little relieved that his uncle is not repulsed by him. He thinks for a moment, and asks, "you don't think Nanna would…"
"Judge you? Nah. How could she? You have two moms. I mean, she was a little mean when Jane first started bringin' girls here, but she came around pretty quick. My Pop was a different story, so it's a good thing he's not around anymore. And when he left, Nanna realized it would be real hypocritical to comment on anyone's marriage after her own had fallen apart. So you don't have to worry about your family feelin' anything but love for you," Frankie says, taking a sip of his fourth beer of the night. "Ya sister likes a Talucci. If we're gonna judge anybody, it's gonna be her."
Cicciu puts his growing hand in Frankie's large, meaty one. They squeeze at the same time, and are quiet for several minutes. Frankie's last statement makes Cicciu think, however, and soon enough he can't help himself anymore. "Uncle Frankie?"
"Yeah, kid," Frankie answers. After their last topic of conversation, he can't imagine anything to top it. He's relaxed.
"What does… what does Ma do for a living?" asks Cicciu.
Frankie tries not to choke on his drink. Relaxed was clearly the wrong choice. "Uh, whattaya mean?"
"Well," Cicciu sees Frankie's nervousness and catches it. "I know she has a job with the plumber's union. But, she doesn't do plumbing. And I know she builds stuff with my grandpa, but it all seems so… fuzzy. Like it's all unrelated."
Frankie looks behind him to make sure Jane is out of earshot. "Listen, Ciccinu. Your Ma does a lot of different things. And when you're old enough, if you're still curious, she'll have a conversation with you. What you need to know right now, though, is that she does whatever it takes to make sure you never want for anything in your life. You understand me?"
"Yeah, Uncle Frankie."