"25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31…" Adrian said to himself as he brushed the upper left side of his mouth shortly after waking up. He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"35,36, 37…" he continued.
"Hey Adrian. You in there? You've got a phone call." Said Preacher from the outside.
"..39,40. If it's not Natalie, take a message." He said, switching to the upper right side. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5…"
"Adrian, it's the President." Said Preacher.
"…6, 7, 8… The President of what? 9, 10, 11…" he replied.
"Of Taco Bell…what do you think? The President of the United States. President Stoddard is on the phone right now and would like to speak with you." Preacher replied.
Adrian stopped brushing and then shook his head in frustration. "I had no idea he had anything to do with the fast food industry. Great! Now, I have to start all over - Oh, well." He said, opening the door and taking the phone.
"This is Adrian Monk." He answered.
"Adrian. This is John. Were you busy?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes, I was." Adrian stated.
"Well, whatever you were doing, this is more important."
Adrian rolled his eyes.
"Adrian, I just got off the phone with Sharon Grier. She told me how you've been acting." Said Stoddard.
"And just how have I been acting?" asked Adrian, a smirk forming on his lips. It appeared his little plan had the effect that he wanted.
"Disorganized. Disoriented. Unhelpful." Said Stoddard. "Not at all yourself. Mildly Insane. Her words."
"That describes about 98% of the people in her organization." Said Monk. "So, she called you about that?"
"Adrian. I wasn't born yesterday. I know what you're trying to do." John replied.
"And what is that?" he asked.
"Don't think I'm going to let you out of this contract if you act crazy. It's not going to happen!" John answered.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about. Act crazy? Me?" Adrian questioned.
"Very funny. You know I can send you to jail for obstructing justice too." Said Stoddard.
"You really like threatening me with jail, don't you John?" Adrian replied, perturbed.
"It's not a threat, Adrian. Listen, the press is breathing down my neck about these bombings and Grier's team is getting nowhere. That's why it is so urgent that you get on this case. So, what's your deal?" Stoddard responded.
Adrian didn't respond. The political fallout was the urgency that he solve the case, and not the possible loss of life? Lovely.
"Adrian. We need your help. Where's Natalie. Let me speak with her." he said.
"She's not here." Adrian replied. "She went to California."
"When will she be back?" said John.
"Well, I don't exactly know. Seems she was a bit traumatized by the sound of her husband being abducted by unknown assailants and she needed time away to recover." Adrian said.
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. You work so well with her." said John.
"Yes. Yes, I do. And, I don't work well without her. Ask anyone that I worked with on the San Francisco PD. They all know me well."
The President was silent, so an emboldened Adrian continued.
"So, while you're threatening me with jail time to save yourself from a little political embarrassment, consider the embarrassment you'll feel when the highly decorated Commissioner of the San Francisco PD or the Chief of Police of Summit, New Jersey come before a judge and testify of how I was released from the Police Department on psychological discharge after the brutal murder of my first wife. Consider the impact on your case when they speak of how I would commonly become disoriented and out of sorts after that if things were not 'just right' – things like being kidnapped and taken away from my family, not knowing if I would live or die. Then imagine the headlines as the press explains how you caused my setback." he replied.
Stoddard was silent for several seconds. "Alright... What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Adrian asked. "You make this sound like I'm blackmailing you."
"Aren't you? Okay...What can I do to make it better?" John said.
"You can release me from this contract so I can go and pursue my wife and get my life back." Said Adrian.
"I see. I'll tell you what. You work with Grier and get this case solve…" Stoddard said.
"No. Not with Grier. Having worked in the government for a while now, it's pretty clear to me that I work best without having someone over my head dictating what I can or can't do." Adrian said.
"Adrian, it's her case. You're her Associate Director." Stoddard replied.
"If it's her case, let her solve it." Adrian said, pausing for affect. "But, you know she can't solve it, can she?"
Stoddard tapped a pen on his desk. "Okay. You win. You have full control over how you investigate the case, so long as you keep Grier in the loop. She will be told to give you the briefings for you to review, but you have full reign over what you actually investigate – so long as it towards the end goal of solving this case."
"And?" Adrian asked.
"And…you solve the case and I'll let you out of your contract." Said Stoddard.
"I have your word?" Adrian asked.
"You have my word." John replied.
"Good. D.C. is a one-party consent area, so the fact that I might have recorded this phone call will keep you honest." Said Monk. He hadn't actually, since the phone was Preacher's and it was just handed to him, but he thought it would help keep Stoddard honest.
Natalie bundled the babies up and put them in their car seats in preparation for their trip to Marin County. They were going to meet their Uncle Ambrose and Aunt Heather for the first time.
She was surprised by the request that she meet them at a local park. It seems that Ambrose's psychiatrist had prescribed him a new anti-anxiety medication that Ambrose tolerated well, and Heather had been working with him in baby steps helping him to leave the house. There was a National Booksellers' Awards Ceremony later that month and it so happened that one of Ambrose's manuals had been nominated for an award. Heather had encouraged him to try to work up to being in a crowd, and meeting at the park was part of that exercise.
Pulling up to the park, she began to cry when she saw Ambrose and Heather sitting together eating a sack lunch on a bench watching children play. Heather gently stroked his back, and she could tell Ambrose was very nervous by the way he fidgeted. But, he was holding his own and Natalie felt so proud of him in that moment.
Placing the babies in a double-stroller, Natalie rolled them up to the couple and made the introductions.
"Ambrose, Heather. I would like for you to meet Leland Robert and Abigail Margaret. We call them Lee and Abby for short." She said with a smile.
"Oh my goodness! Natalie!" Ambrose said in awe. "They..they're beautiful. Wow! Abby looks just like you and Lee, well.."
"I know. Everyone says it." Natalie said, clasping her hands up in front of her face. "He's Adrian made over. Do you want to hold them?"
"Oh…no…no I couldn't." Ambrose said, shaking and sitting back down on the bench. "I might break them."
"It's okay, Ambrose. You can do this." Said Heather, sipping on a soda.
"She's right, Ambrose. You'll be fine." Natalie said, lifting Abby up and handing her to Heather and lifting Lee up out of the stroller and handing him to his uncle.
As Ambrose held the baby carefully around his torso, he smiled and said, "Hello little man! I'm your uncle. Ambrose Monk. I'm very happy to meet you."
Lee studied Ambrose's face as if he understood, and then leaned forward and laid ahold of one of the buttons on Ambrose's shirt.
"He's so precious, Natalie!" said Heather. "Is he a good baby?"
"Very. His little sister is the emotional one." Natalie said. "But please, tell me about you? This is absolutely AMAZING Ambrose! I never thought I would see the day."
"Yeah. Neither did I." Ambrose said, looking between Lee who was now pounding on Ambrose's chest with his tiny hands, and Natalie.
"Natalie, let me tell you, it's changed our lives. We haven't tried any big crowds yet, but last week we went to the Supermarket early in the morning and bought groceries." Heather said.
"Do you know when the last time it was that I actually was in a Supermarket?" Ambrose said. "Ten. I was ten years old. Right around the time Dad left."
"And you did so well, honey. He did so well, Natalie! You would have been proud of him!" Heather continued.
"I AM proud of him!" Natalie said, patting Ambrose on the shoulder. "So proud! And I hear you're up for an award?"
"Yes. Yes… the Booksellers' Convention has nominated one of my manuals for Best Non-fiction Instructional Manual." Ambrose replied.
"There are fictional Instructional Manuals?" Natalie said, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yeah. There are books on everything. You'd be surprised. Anyway, I've won the award before but have never been able to attend, and Heather…" Ambrose said.
"I thought, why not go this year? The doctor wants him to try new situations. So…" Heather said.
"So, I'm going! I'm going to go to the Convention!" Ambrose said anxiously.
"That's wonderful!" Natalie said exuberantly.
"Thank you. I'm…I'm so nervous though. Do you think you and Adrian can come?" he asked.
Natalie's look turned a bit more serious. "I..I'm not sure." She said.
"Why not?" asked Heather. "It would mean a lot to Ambrose."
"Well, Adrian and I aren't…well, we are but we aren't…we're not together right now." Natalie said, not sure how Ambrose would take the news.
"You split up?" Heather asked, shocked.
"Was it…was it me? It was me, wasn't it?" Ambrose said.
"No…no..no.." Natalie said. "We haven't broken up. I just needed a little time away."
Ambrose and Heather listened.
"You see, it kinda stemmed around Adrian's job and how dangerous it is, sometimes." Natalie said.
"But you knew that." Said Heather.
"Yeah. I know. I knew that. But something happened and I thought, even though everything was telling me no, I was afraid that I had lost him. It..it was really terrible. And then, I found out that he was okay, but was going to be put in a situation where he might be in worse danger. And, I looked down at our children and thought of what it would be to raise them by myself and what it would be like to have to explain to them why their daddy wasn't there. And, I just couldn't deal with it. …I just had to get away. Mom insinuated I was thinking too much of myself and just needed to communicate better." She said.
"So, let me get this straight, you don't want your babies to be without a father, so you take off and leave them without their father?" Heather said. "Doesn't sound very rational to me."
Natalie sat up straight feeling a little defensive, but then Ambrose stepped in.
"No, Honey. You don't understand. But, I do. I understand, Natalie." He said.
"You do?" Natalie asked.
"Yes. It's called thanatophobia coupled with a bit of autophobia, and metathesiophobia with a single parent twist." He said.
"Come again?" Natalie asked.
"It's fear, Natalie. You are struggling with fear. Fear of losing someone you love. Fear of being alone. Fear of change. Fear of the future unknown. Fear of pain. Fear of heartbreak. Fear for your children." Ambrose said.
Natalie whelmed up. He had struck a chord. "You make me sound like I'm pretty much a mess."
"Well, aren't you? Natalie, you may not know this about me, but I've pretty much struggled with fear my whole life." He said, trying to lighten things a little.
"Oh yeah?" she said, wiping her eyes with a smile. "I never noticed."
"I've spent my entire life trying to insulate myself in some imaginary little cocoon from bad things happening. Honestly, had it not been for Heather and my shrink, I still would be. But these past few months have taught me more than I could ever have imagined." He said.
"What's that, Ambrose?" Natalie asked.
"They've taught me that I can't ultimately isolate myself from bad things. Whether I'm in the house or I'm out and about, bad things can and do happen. It's a fact of life. I've known this, goodness, since Dad left. But, I couldn't process it. I couldn't make it compute. With therapy and …Heather, I am seeing that I can't control what happens tomorrow and the good and the bad are going to come. I still struggle with acceptance of that, but I'm getting there." He said.
Natalie watched and marveled at Ambrose's new self-awareness and the growth she saw within him.
"I've learned something else." He said. "Since I've been with Heather, and since I've been able to get out a bit…I've learned what I've missed and what regret I now have that I didn't get to do it sooner. I …I guess what I'm saying is, your fears are normal and natural. They are a part of life. You don't have them to the degree that I or Adrian have had them. But, they are every bit as real. Nevertheless, you need to know that you can't wrap your life up in a cocoon and isolate yourself and your children from bad things. You can't isolate Adrian. And, you can't let fear rob you of life. I've done that for far too long. You…you don't want to do that, trust me."
Wow. That was it. Ambrose had nailed what the issue was to the degree that Natalie was surprised that she hadn't seen it. She had a side of her that was prone to worry in the past, but this was beyond worry. This was a paralyzing fear that wasn't based so much on objective reality (though there was some basis for concern given Adrian's work), but more on raw emotion. It was normal for her to question and even be anxious about some of these things, but the way she had dealt with it wasn't necessarily right – not that she placed blame on herself. She was trying to figure all of this out as well. It took Ambrose to help her see it.
"Amazing." She said.
"What's that?" he asked.
"You read me so well." She replied.
"I've been you for 50 years, and worse. It's not easy. But, you can't let it defeat you." He said.
At that point Abby began to fuss and Heather, with a soda in one hand and the baby cradled in the opposite arm, leaned over to give her niece back to Natalie. As she did, her soda tilted Ambrose and Lee's way.
"Hey, look at that!" Ambrose said as the two women transferred Abby. Looking up, they saw Lee was leaning over toward Heather and had reached out his little hand, and was repeatedly touching the tip of her straw with his index finger.
As the three of them snickered, Natalie relaxed. With Abby seated in her lap, she put her hands up to her mouth once again, and with a smile on her face she said with amazement. "Two of them. Oh my. I am in soooo much trouble."
