A/N: Credit where credit is due: references to another episode written by Daniel Palladino of future 'Gilmore Girls' and 'Mrs. Maisel' fame.

Ch 31 – Ode to Angela (1)

"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" Tony asked, his fingers drawing a fantasy pattern around Angela's belly button.

It was the middle of the week, but they were still snuggled up in bed at eight in the morning. The kids were on Christmas break and at an age now where they enjoyed sleeping in, and Angela had taken the whole week before New Year's off. She was only making daily phone calls to the office to check in with Jack, who had made a full recovery (and not given mumps to anyone else at the office, thankfully) – and with Mona.

Mona had miraculously agreed to help hold down the fort in Manhattan, and Tony was almost sure that she suspected what else was going on. Otherwise, wouldn't she have insisted on taking time off, too?

But whatever Mona's true motivation was – Tony was glad that she had made it easier for Angela to agree to rest this week. The stress before Christmas and the physical demands of early pregnancy were catching up with her, and she wasn't feeling well a lot of the time.

Tony brought her tea and crackers in the morning, cooked a little more blandly and with lots of high-fiber carbs, and encouraged her to nap during the day. Truth be told, he relished being able to focus on taking care of Angela this week. It allowed him to put all other worries – school, his employment situation – well out of his mind.

He felt Angela yawn, the soft skin of her stomach rising under his hand as she breathed in.

"I don't have a feeling one way or the other, to be honest," she said on the tail-end of her yawn. "Do you?"

Tony shrugged. "You're feeling sick a lot more than with Jonathan, right? So maybe it's a girl."

For years, Tony had figured that if he ever had another kid, he would want it to be a boy. Like in his fantasies, a Sammy for his little Samantha – only that they wouldn't be twins. But now that the baby was on its way, he was surprisingly enamored of the idea of having another daughter.

He loved seeing so much of Marie in Sam – her petite frame, her zest for life, her eyes. Becoming the father of a little girl with Angela's smile, her laugh, and with her smarts …

"Aren't those just old wives' tales?" Angela asked, bemused, interrupting his train of thought. "You know, like predicting the sex from the shape of the belly?"

"I don't know. The old wives were right about Sam being a girl."

"They were?" Angela cocked her head on the pillow, giving him a quizzical look.

"Oh, yeah. Mrs. R. called some kind of conference, or maybe it was a séance? And they all took a good long look at Marie, and one of them got out this pendulum, and it was unanimous."

"Mhhm," Angela hummed, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "Maybe you're right. I do feel different this time around."

"I'm sure Mrs. Rossini would be more than happy to get the old gang together again. But we're gonna have to wait a little longer, so they'll have something to look at," Tony said, fanning his fingers out over Angela's abdomen.

Angela chortled. "She would love that, wouldn't she? You said she was so excited when she found out about us. Wait until you tell her about the baby."

Tony nodded. "Yeah."

He had gotten one lie by omission out of the way already by giving Mrs. R. a call on Christmas Day and supposedly telling her about their new relationship.

"But I don't think we're going to need a pendulum," Angela continued. "They can usually tell on the ultrasound. From what I've read."

"When we go in January?" This early? Now that was surprising.

"No, a little later than that. But we could find out for sure if we want," Angela said softly.

"Do you want to find out?"

"I don't know." Angela yawned again. "It might be nice to be prepared, you know? But there's also something to be said for the element of surprise."

"Definitely," Tony said, thinking back to his late-night visit to Marie's hospital room the day Sam was born.

He hadn't made it in time, even though he hightailed it to the airport as soon as he got the call and spent half a fortune on a last-minute plane ticket from Cleveland back to New York.

All along, he had been hoping for a boy, if he was perfectly honest. No matter what the old wives said. But as soon as he laid eyes on Samantha, with her thick mop of dark hair, round cheeks, and little fists flying in the air, he fell head over heels in love with his daughter.

"We don't have to decide now," Angela said. "But it's something to think about."

"Yeah. Speaking of which, have you thought about New Year's Eve?" Tony changed the subject, pulling Angela's nightie down over her stomach and drawing her closer to him under the covers.

"Would you be very disappointed if we just stayed in? I think I would like to eat early, curl up on the couch with you, watch the ball drop, and go to bed."

Tony pressed a featherlight kiss to the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. "Sounds like a perfect New Year's Eve to me."

"You're really okay not going out to dinner?"

"Hey, of course. All I want is to be with you, and I don't care if it's at a fancy restaurant or here at home."

In fact, Tony had hoped that Angela would want to stay in. They didn't need an audience for what he had planned.

Angela smiled up at him. She began peppering little kisses along his jawline, muttering in between pecks, "It's going to be nice … having the house … to ourselves … with Sam at Julia's … Jonathan in the City … with Todd's family … and I suspect … Mother won't come home … before mid-January."

ooooooooo … ooooooooo

Later that morning, Angela stood in the bathroom in front of the mirror, combing out her hair. She was long overdue for a trim, it was getting more and more difficult to disentangle the dry ends.

Running the brush through the long tresses and getting stuck on little knots here and there, she felt herself growing increasingly irritated. But she was self-aware enough to realize that this was not really about her hair.

Tony's hint about still having to propose during their Christmas walk had jolted her out of the nauseous, exhausted, yet blissful haze that she found herself in this holiday season. Since then, the thought kept popping back up. Under no circumstances did she want Tony to ask her before she had a chance to tell him about Las Vegas.

If only she didn't feel so … fragile right now. What if Tony reacted badly to her admission? She had seen it before – if something caught him off guard, or made him feel insecure, he could get defensive, or incredibly overeager.

But what did he have to worry about, really? So she had been married before Michael. For less than a day, almost twenty years ago. Big deal, right?

The biggest deal of all in this situation was probably that somehow, she had never told Tony about it. Not him, not anyone. Not even her mother or Michael. In fact, it had never occurred to her to let her husband of nine years in on this youthful folly. In their relationship, there had been certain nooks and crannies that neither of them ever dared to investigate too closely.

It was different with Tony. Even while still only her housekeeper, he had gotten to know her better than literally anyone else. He knew everything about her, down to her preferred brand of dental floss.

Well, almost everything.

If she asked her mother about it, she would probably advise her to keep her quickie wedding to herself. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But Angela felt that she owed Tony absolute honesty where her history was concerned.

After all: Tony himself had gone ahead and taken a great risk when he told her about not-quite-but-still cheating on Marie with other women on the baseball circuit. That had been nothing but brave of him, and Angela didn't trust him any less because of it. On the contrary – she felt that it had brought them closer.

Now it was her turn. But how was she supposed to orchestrate her own reveal? She couldn't just walk up to him in the kitchen and tell him. Or could she?

Finally done with her hair, Angela heaved a sigh. She knew that she should just rip the band-aid off instead of waiting for a good moment or until she felt ready, because that moment, that feeling of readiness – they would never come.

She fished in her drawers for a cozy sweatshirt and a pair of well-worn leggings. Anything constricting her belly just felt so uncomfortable these days. Maybe Tony was right, and they were having a little girl.

She was about to walk down the stairs when her gaze caught on the door to Tony's room. His old room. He hadn't slept in there since the day they told the kids about their new relationship status.

Angela pushed the door open and took a step inside. Suddenly, she could see it all in front of her mind's eye: the crib and the rocking chair, a little dresser, the changing table, and Grandpa Micelli's certificates on the wall. High enough so tiny hands wouldn't be able to reach them, of course.

She took a deep breath. They had come so far, hadn't they? What was a spontaneous wedding 20 years ago compared to their journey over the past four years.

ooooooooo … ooooooooo

Tony heard the kitchen door go and turned around to find Angela, wearing her oversize sweatshirt with the large blue and white horizontal stripes. She had her hair in a precarious updo and gave him a small smile.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself. Toast will be ready in a minute. But your tea should be done, go ahead and take the bag out." He gestured at the kitchen table.

The kids were still nowhere to be seen or heard, so he figured they would be on their own for breakfast. In order not to upset Angela's stomach any further, he had recently made a switch from eggs to oatmeal in the mornings. Oatmeal didn't smell, and it was actually a nice change, and a sufficiently nutritious alternative for the time being.

So far, nobody had questioned his motives, but Tony was under no illusions as to how much longer they would be able to hide this pregnancy from their immediate family. Angela didn't look well at all, especially in the mornings, and both kids had already commented on the fact that she had started to eat breakfast, meager as her fare was with one sad slice of dry toast.

Add to that her dislike for even the thinnest coffee that had crept in this week, and Tony figured they had one or two more weeks until somebody would finally say something. Maybe they were already keeping silent simply to humor them, much like they had done with their budding romantic relationship.

"Thank you," Angela said as she pulled out a chair, her voice unusually strained to his ears.

"Alright, here we go," he said not much later, carrying his bowl of oatmeal and Angela's toast over to the table.

"Yummy," she said ironically, clinking her steaming mug of tea against Tony's coffee.

He lifted a spoonful of oatmeal to his mouth, but kept his eyes trained on Angela's face. Something was up, he could tell from the small crease in between her eyebrows.

"Something the matter?" he asked, knowing that sometimes she needed a little prodding.

Angela set down her mug and picked up her slice of toast, only to put it right back onto the plate. "Nothing. I'm …" Her eyes darted around the room. "Well, in fact, there is something I need to tell you. And I guess there isn't really an ideal moment for something like this."

That sounded … ominous. "Uh, what is it?"

"It's nothing bad!" She raised her hand as if to placate him before he even knew what she needed to say.

"Are you feeling okay?" She did look awfully pale this morning.

"I'm fine," she assured him, "considering. It's just … There is something that has been on my mind ever since we talked about getting married."

"Oh?" Now he was getting nervous.

"You and I, we know so much about each other. But there is one thing I never … I guess I didn't see a reason, and then I forgot about it, but when you said that you would marry me anywhere, I realized that … I never told you."

"Told me what, Angela?" he asked, holding on to his coffee mug to steady himself.

"That I was married before."

"Um, Angela? Are you sure you're okay? Did you hit your head on the way down here? Because … I know that. Remember, Michael and I, we met a couple of times. He fired me, then he told me to come back, we went to his wedding, he wants to come to ours?"

She chuckled nervously. "No. I don't mean Michael. Before him. I was married once before."

Oh. "What?"

She looked at him, wide-eyed. "I've been married twice."

"But … when?"

"When I was in college. Brian and I were 21."

"Brian?"

She nodded. "Brian. Brian Thomas."

"Brian Thomas?" he repeated after her as if he were learning a new language.

"Brian Thomas." She nodded again.

"And you and this Brian guy got married?"

"In Las Vegas. Fall of '71."

"Wow."

Angela shifted uneasily in her chair, then her words came rapid-fire. "We were in the same poetry class, and one night, there was this reading. Brian's poetry …it touched me so deeply. We went to get a drink, and before we knew it, we were on a plane to Las Vegas. We played Blackjack, pigged out at the smorgasbord table, saw Wayne Newton, and – well – then we got married."

Tony was stumped. He didn't quite know how he felt about this, and he sure as hell didn't know what to say. He had expected something bad. This wasn't bad. This was … surprising, and a little funny.

"For how long were you-?"

Angela gesticulated with her hands. "It was one of those crazy college things. The next day, Brian flew to Mexico and had it annulled. We never really spoke again after that." Redness has asserted itself in her cheeks.

"So, you were married for … a day? When you were 21? And you never talked to the guy again?"

"Uh-huh." She looked at him, a tight smile on her lips, as if she was bracing herself for whatever kind of impact was coming.

Suddenly, a laugh burst forward from somewhere deep inside of Tony. "Boy, I gotta say, you had me scared here, Angela!"

She blinked, and he knew he was on thin ice, but he couldn't help it. "I thought you were gonna tell me something terrible. But this is … kinda cute."

"Cute?" she asked, her eyebrows arched.

"Well, yeah." He reached for her hand. "Don't get me wrong. I appreciate you telling me about this. But I don't know, I think it's ... water under the bridge, right? But it's a great story. You, at 21, getting married in Vegas. That's so … unlike you."

Angela took her hand away. "I'm glad you find this amusing."

"Hey, no, sweetheart." He reached for her again. "I'm not making fun of you. I'm just surprised. Was the priest one of those Elvis impersonators?""

This was one step too far, and Tony knew it. But he kept getting mental images of 21-year-old Angela, dressed like a flower child, marrying some long-haired, pretentious poet in a tacky chapel off the Las Vegas Strip. God-damn it, it was funny!

Predictably, Angela tore her hand away from him again and pushed back her chair. "Serves me right for wanting to be honest!" she huffed angrily and burst through the swinging door into the living room.

"Angela!"

But she was gone. Tony heard her stomping through the living room towards her study. Then she flung the door closed behind herself, as evidenced by a distant banging.

He groaned. This had gone as wrong as it possibly could.

After three fortifying spoons of his lukewarm oatmeal and a large sip of coffee, he picked up Angela's plate with the untouched piece of toast and balanced her mug of tea next to it.

"Sweetheart?" He knocked on her door.

Nothing.

"Angela? Can I come in?" Carefully, he turned the door handle and stuck his head inside the room.

"No," she said half-heartedly from where she was sitting at the desk, her head in her hands.

"You sure?"

She sniffed. "No."

Tony came in. "I brought you something," he said, setting the plate down next to her left elbow. "And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to react like that. It wasn't okay that I laughed."

Angela exhaled shakily. "This has been on my mind for two weeks."

He crouched down next to her and put his hand on her lower back, beginning to rub slow circles in the spot that he knew still hurt her sometimes. "Were you worried I would be upset?"

"A little," she admitted. "I don't know. It became this big thing to me that I was keeping from you …"

"It's not a big thing," he tried to reassure her. "But it's important, and I really appreciate you telling me about it. The guy must have been pretty special for you to agree to marry him on a whim like that. Without making a list or anything."

Angela snorted tearfully and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "We were so young, and it felt so wildly romantic. To do something reckless for a change. You know?"

Tony reached for the armrests of her chair and swiveled it around by 90 degrees. He took hold of both of Angela's knees and angled his head so he could look into her eyes.

"Are you kidding me? Of course I know. I've done my share of reckless stuff. And not all of it was something I could take back the next morning."

He knew that she knew what he was referring to, but only now did it occur to him that her admission may have been inspired by his own tearful confession two months earlier.

Angela cleared her throat. "I never told anybody about this. Not even Mother, or Michael."

The full scale of his mess-up became more and more clear to Tony. "Thank you for telling me."

Angela gripped his hands. "I want us to be honest. About everything. But I shouldn't have sprung this on you at breakfast. I just … I wanted you to know. Before you ask me."

"Of course. I want us to be honest, too."

Again, a little pang of guilt. But so far, he hadn't heard a peep from anybody in Brooklyn. It seemed that Mrs. R. was keeping her word. Briefly, he debated coming clean about his indiscretion. But what good would it do? Mona knew (most of it), so the mother figure in his own life was fair game, wasn't she? And the last thing Tony wanted was for this situation to escalate again.

"Good," Angela breathed.

He squeezed her hands. "Good. And again, I'm very sorry I laughed. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I was just … I imagined you and Brian in Las Vegas. Two flower children in the most sinful city on Earth."

Finally, Angela smiled, if still somewhat against her will. "It wasn't like that. Well, maybe a little."

"Do you have a wedding picture? I would love to see it."

"I bet you would."

He started to rise to a standing position, brushing a gentle kiss against Angela's cheek on the way up. "How about we finish breakfast, and then we go for a drive? You tell me all about Vegas. If you still want to."

"Okay," she said.

"And I'm going to want to hear some poetry, too."

"I didn't know you were interested in poetry." Her face lit up, and immediately, Tony sensed that he was in a new sort of trouble.

He put on a brave face. "Me, Angela? Are you kidding me? I have written poetry. I was the Poet Laureate at Pitkin High!"

"Well, in that case – you will love what Brian wrote for me."

ooooooooo … ooooooooo

Upstairs, the banging of the door to Angela's study had woken up Samantha. Not fully conscious yet, she wondered dimly what was going on now.

She couldn't wait to be no longer grounded. It was so exhausting to be stuck at home with her dad and Angela for her whole Christmas break, having to pretend not to notice things.

Her dad spent all day clucking around Angela like a worried mother hen, and Angela kept trying to put on a brave face even though she looked about ready to barf half the time.

But whenever she came close to being overwhelmed by exasperation, Sam remembered that she had done this to herself – nobody had forced her to search Angela's bathroom.

With a silent groan, she pulled the covers over her head and squeezed her eyes shut.