Harm felt so much pain looking at the pictures, but he couldn't take his eyes away from them and kept turning the pages over so that a new set of pictures would be shown to him. There were pictures of newborn Isabelle together with her proud mom, grandmother and godfather Sturgis, pictures of Isabelle sleeping, smiling, eating and crying.
Mac had her eyes on him as much as on the photos. She could see that this might not have been such a good idea as she had thought, she hadn't meant to put him in even more pain. Isabelle soon lost interest in watching the photos and went upstairs to play in her room instead.
"I'm sorry, Harm, I didn't realize this would be so hard for you," Harm had turned back to the page with Mac pregnant.
"No, I want to see this... I... You are so beautiful," he looked up at Mac "So incredibly beautiful. I just keep thinking what if."
"But we can't have those 'ifs' and if we keep thinking about them we really ... we won't enjoy what we actually got. That's something I learned these last 8 years. At first I kept thinking what if you were here beside me, but it just made be not see the people who still were. It just made me unhappy and I had to be happy for Isabelle's sake. And so do you now," she made a pause and looked deep into his eyes "Harm, don't be sad because of the time you missed with Belle, be happy that you have the chance to get to know her now."
"I know that you are right, it just isn't as easy as it might seem."
"I know it isn't easy, Harm."
"Mom," Isabelle came back from her room "Can we go to the playground?"
Mac looked at her watch and nodded "Sure. Harm?"
"Yeah, let's do that," Harm said and nodded as well. The three of them went to get their shoes on.
"You've got your medicine?" Mac asked Isabelle.
"Oops," Isabelle took off her shoes again and ran back to the kitchen.
"Is she ill?" Harm asked worriedly "I remember she had gone to get her medicine the day we first met too, hadn't she?"
"Yeah she had, but she isn't really ill. She's allergic to bee stings so we have to be careful bringing her medicine everywhere in case she gets stung. If she got stung and didn't get the medicine right away, it would be ... it would be really serious. We're trying to teach her to remember to bring the medicine herself with her everywhere, but she still forgets sometimes," Mac tried to smile, but the seriousness of her daughter's allergy shone through.
"And what do I do if she does get stung?" Harm asked her.
Mac explained glad that Harm was interested in knowing and when Isabelle returned she joined in the explanation. They locked the door behind them and walked the little distance to the playground by Mrs. Sommer's ice cream stand. Isabelle together with Mac or Jack and sometimes both were often here at weekends and now in the summer sometimes in the evenings as well. The children from the neighborhood would play together and their parents would watch them and talk to the other adults.
When they were just outside the playground Isabelle ran ahead of them. One of her best friends, Sandra, was there. The girl she had argued with the last time she was there was fortunately not there this time. Harm and Mac sat down on one of the benches and soon they were joined by one of the other mothers.
"Hello Mrs. Jones," Mac said politely. Mrs. Jones was the one in charge of the gossiping mill so she wasn't really glad that it was her they had met. She wasn't sure exactly how much was known around the neighborhood about Commander Rabb, the released prisoner of Afghanistan, being Isabelle's father.
"Hello Ms Mackenzie,"she answered "Aren't you going to introduce us?" she nodded towards Harm obviously a little bit taken with him.
"Of course... Mrs. Jones this is Isabelle's father Commander Harmon Rabb. Harm this is Mrs. Jones, the mother of Isabelle's friend Sandra."
Harm reached out his hand and shook hands with Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones stayed around subtly and not so subtly trying to find out as much about Harm as she could. Harm and Mac would glance at each other at times thinking the exact same thing about Mrs. Jones. Mac was glad that Isabelle had such good friends like Sandra, but it was unfortunate that she wasn't choosing her friends after what their mothers were like at times.
The way Harm was handling it was definitely a compliment to him. Mac almost regretted going out here, but on the other hand this way soon the story would be known all over the place and added to that Mac and Jack's divorce, there was a good chance Mac alone with her family would be the most discussed topic at this place for quite some time. When Isabelle had been playing for a little over an hour and Mrs. Jones was still talking to Harm, Mac decided to put an end to Harm's misery.
"I think we better leave now, if I'm going to get dinner ready before your mother comes," Mac said and got up from her seat. She hoped that Harm would catch on and apparently he did because he got up as well.
"She's coming over here soon, right?"
"Yes, she is," Mac said and shouted towards the children "Belle, come on let's go." Isabelle looked like she was going to protest at first, but then came over to them.
"It was nice meeting you," Mrs. Jones said.
"It was nice meeting you too," Harm said not quite as sincerely as Mrs. Jones had been.
"Why are we leaving already?" Isabelle asked and sneaked each one of her hands into her parent's hands.
"We're... uh having dinner with Grandma Trish," Mac said starting to realize that she'd probably have to invite Trish over for dinner now. Not that it was really a problem and besides she still had to tell Trish about the separation and divorce.
"You didn't tell me Grandma..." Isabelle started saying and Mac and Harm started to walk off hoping that Mrs. Jones wouldn't get suspicious.
"So you kept your name? You're still a Mackenzie," Harm commented on the way home.
"Yes, I did. I guess I thought it would be kind of nice to have the same name as my daughter I guess," Mac smiled at him
An hour and a half later they were sitting down to have dinner on the porch outside the house. Trish had been delighted to come and had laughed for a few minutes about the reason for the sudden invite.
The four of them, Frank had been forced to return to California on business earlier the same day, were having a nice time together. Trish asked where Jack was and Mac had told him that he was working. Just a few minutes after that Jack walked into the house.
"Dad," Isabelle sprung up from the table and ran towards the door. Not much later she returned together with Jack.
"'Evening," he said.
"Hey," Mac said for some reason feeling awkward. "Do you... would you like some dinner? I'll go and get a plate for you." She started to get up, but stopped when Jack told her he had already eaten.
"Oh," was all Mac could get out.
"But aren't you going to come and sit down here with us?" Trish asked wondering what was wrong here.
"I still have some work to do..." Jack said "I'll just get to that." He turned around and walked out.
Trish looked at Mac with many questions displayed in her face. Isabelle looked like she was going to start to cry any second. The dinner continued in silence and was very soon brought to an end. Mac encouraged Isabelle to show her father some of the drawings she had made in school last year and Mac and Trish went to the kitchen to clean up after dinner.
"Does Jack think it's tough that Harm's back?" Trish asked not sure what to believe about the way they had acted around each other.
"No. it's not that. It's..." Mac took a deep breath in. This was hard. Trish was like the mother she had never had and telling her that she had failed in her marriage wasn't easy at all. "Jack and I are getting a divorce. He's going to move out when we're up in Belleville."
"He's leaving you?" Trish seemed to be in shock.
"We're leaving each other..."
"Are you sure... Have you thought this through? You've always seemed so happy together, so..."
"Trish, we're not taking this lightly and we've tried everything we could to find a way to stay together, but... we just can't."
"Poor Isabelle. Does she know? This must be so awful for her. Are you sure that this is going to be the best for all of you?" The questions came rolling off her tongue rapidly. Trish was rather shaken up by this.
"Trish, I know that this is going to be hard for her, but so would having a mother and stepfather who were completely unhappy with each other be," Mac tried to explain patiently, but she felt that everything that was happening around her was starting to become too much for her. Being a mom had made her able to control herself and her emotions a lot more than she could before, but she wasn't sure if it was going to be enough and she didn't want to take anything out on Trish that she really had done nothing to deserve.
Luckily Harm chose to return at this time carrying a very sleepy girl.
"I think there's somebody here who needs to get to bed."
"It sure looks like that," Mac agreed. "You want to help me tuck her in?"
"I'd love to," Harm answered. Mac and Trish were finished with the dishes and while Mac, Harm and Isabelle went upstairs to brush Isabelle's teeth and get her to bed. Trish went in search of Jack to see if she'd have more luck convincing him that they were rushing things with the divorce. Half an hour later Harm and Trish left the house together, Harm filled with the joy that spending time with his daughter was bringing him and Trish sad that she hadn't seemed to get through to neither Mac nor Jack about the mistake that she thought they were making.
TBC