Author's Note: Okay... First off, I'm doing this chapter as a songfic. The song is Robbie Robertson's "Shine Your Light" from the Ladder 49, soundtrack. I found it appropriate, and hope you all find it so you can hear it. Secondly, Catholic Weddings and Funerals are LONG and boring and have a lot of pomp and circumstance that would take me forever and a day to write that's why we're only getting little blips of each thing... I am Catholic and have been to both and I don't think I could keep any one's attention... I know it wouldn't keep mine. The reason that it is being done in a Catholic Church is that I don't remember anyone saying if Donna was Catholic or not so I'm making her so, and making her kids raised Catholic but with Jewish traditions... CaJews if you will.
The cry of the city like a siren's song
Wailing over the rooftops the whole night long
Saw a shooting star like a diamond in the sky
Must be someone's soul passing by
Tess knew what to do; she stood holding her rosary in her hand, with Evan's hand in hers and Carley to her right, with Jake on her left. She wore the sleeveless black dress and heels. They stood and began walking together, Abbey, Liz, Ellie, and Zoë were following the casket and their families behind them as they all followed and began the long walk down Madison Avenue to the Capital.
These are the streets
Where we used to run where your Papa's from
These are the days
Where you become what you become
These are the streets
Where the story's told
The truth unfolds
Darkness settles in
Tess was shaking as they got on Air Force One; Evan was still holding her hand. She was in a different outfit today, three days after the walk from one end of Madison Avenue to the Capital. She and Carley sat across from one another, with the rest of the family around them, no one talking. Once the seatbelts sign went off they were called for lunch. Tess walked into the conference room and sat next to her father, both just picked at the sandwiches in front of them, not actually eating.
"You have to eat something Tess," Evan whispered in her ear.
"Nope," she said as she stood up and walked out of the room.
Evan let his head fall back on the chair; Donna reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll go," she says as she gets up and walks out of the room and finds Tess pacing the floor in the hallway a little ways down.
Shine your light down on me
Lift me up so I can see
Shine your light when you're gone
Give me the strength
To carry on, carry on
"You're going to wear a hole in the carpet," her mother says from the doorway.
Tess just rolls her eyes.
"What's wrong, Therese?"
"Can we not do this for once?"
"Do what?"
"You pretend not to know what's wrong when we both know you do know and then you get me to talk about it and then everything is okay."
"It's not going to be okay."
"Glad to see we're not all in denial."
"Who's in denial?"
"My husband, my siblings, my cousins, my aunts, and uncles, pretty much everyone on this plane but you, me and Daddy!"
"Why would everyone be in denial?"
"Because they're acting like nothing has changed."
"They're sad Tess," Donna says as she walks to her and sits down in front of her.
"No, their not! I'm sad."
"Everyone deals with grief differently."
"I can't eat, neither can Daddy, you are at least sad, everyone else… they don't get it. It's like they don't get it."
"They prepared themselves for this Tess."
"And I didn't?"
"You've had other things on your mind."
"The wedding," she whispers.
"Yea, and no one blames you at all, but everyone else saw this coming."
"I did too," Tess said pouting looking away from her mother and out the door.
"I know baby, but you were slightly distracted for the past few months."
"I'm supposed to give a eulogy."
"Yea, I know."
"What do I say? I mean, everyone knows…"
"Talk about your time with him, Tess. Something that was personally him and you, tell us about that."
"Yea, I don't know," Tess says leaning her head against the wall near her.
"You have to eat something."
"Mom!"
"You do, I can't having you fainting at the pulpit."
"Fine, I don't know what I can eat but…"
"Pudding, hold on."
Donna disappears for a few minutes and Tess begins to nod off to sleep when her mother reappears holding a snack pack.
"Here, butterscotch, your favorite."
"How'd they…"
"You Uncle Toby was a secret snack pack fiend, anytime he's on board Sam makes sure there are some on board."
"Oh," Tess takes the pudding pack and opens it and begins to eat it. "Thank you."
"It's what moms do."
Tess nods and Donna sits next to her in the quiet and as she eats the pudding Donna rubs her back and smiles.
It was that Thursday when Tess actually gave the eulogy, the last one, the only one at the actual funeral.
Don't want to be a hero
Just an everyday man
Trying to do the job the very best he can
But now it's like living on borrowed time
Out on the rim, over the line
Always tempting fate like a game of chance
Never want to stick around to the very last dance
Sometimes I stumble and take a hard fall
Loose hold your grip off the wall
Tess took a deep breath and walked up to the lectern. She took a shaky breath and smiled at the family gathered in front of her.
"I never met either of my biological grandfathers," Tess started. "My father's father died almost twenty years before I was born. And my mother's father died while she was pregnant with my eldest brother. So when Josiah Bartlett adopted us into his family, because we were grandfather-less, it meant something. It also helped that my father was his Deputy Chief of Staff, and Grandpa Jed won the pool about when my parents would finally get together.
Grandpa Jed was an amazing man, and I only knew him for the last twenty one years of his life. We were two of a kind, and people were never sure if my stubborn streak was genetically inherited from my father or a nurturing thing from Grandpa Jed. The twenty five of us, grandchildren, and great grandchildren all grew up on the farm, we were taught things you could never even attempt to learn the things he taught us in school. We learned public speaking skills at age four; but that's what learning Shakespeare will do to you. Our vocabularies were expanded far beyond what any teacher thought was possible; I think Sarah was the only kindergartener I knew that could use the word pontificate. We learned how to try to play an instrument; I think that orchestra was a little out of his reach no matter what he believed. We learned how to appease our parents, and what buttons to push. We learned what stories to ask from whom, and who not to bring certain things up in front of. We learned that love isn't something that is solely contained to blood lines, that it comes in all shapes and sizes, and that family comes in those different ways too. We learned to accept each other for our short comings and our long jumps, for our differences and our similarities, not in spite of anything, because loving someone in spite of something was like not loving them at all.
We learned how to tie our shoes, how to ride horses, how to swim, how to play basketball, how to recite Shakespeare in iambic pentameter, how to speak in front of dignitaries, how to keep our mouths shut on all the secrets we knew, how to sneak into a room, how to smoke cigarettes, how to deal with hangovers, how to make up with people, how to fight with and with out our hands, and we learned how to dance. We learned forgiveness; we learned how to say I'm sorry, and we learned that no matter what, family comes first, and that all of us are family. But most of all we learned love, what it means, how to accept it, and how to give it.
Josiah Bartlett taught his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren what it meant to be loved by someone besides your parents and siblings unconditionally. There were two things that we knew about Grandpa Jed when we did something wrong, one was that he'd forgive us, he'd put us to work but, he'd forgive us. The other was that he probably already knew. He loves us, no matter what. He shines down on us now. I can just see him being greeted Uncle Leo, and a wonderful woman, named Delores Landingham, whom I never met but have been told amazing stories about. Uncle Leo would say something like "Jed, you'll never believe it! You'll never guess who I had lunch with!" and according to my parents and aunts and uncles, and yes even my grandmother, Mrs. Landingham would look at Grandpa Jed and say, "Jed, you took long enough getting here, I was worried you wouldn't make it at all. I saw all you did down there, and it was good, and it was right, and you should be proud of yourself Jed Bartlett, I am." And so are we Mrs. Landingham, and so are we. Thank you."
Shine your light down on me
Lift me up so I can see
Shine your light when you're gone
Give me the strength to carry on
Carry on
And two weeks after the funeral Tess was standing in the back of the church at her college campus waiting for Carley to make her way up the aisle, Josh stood beside her again only this time it was the dress that she had picked out with her mother all those months before. She smiled at Josh and looked up the aisle to her husband. Granted this was just for show, well show and the Catholic Church, but it was still… damn those butterflies. So this was the real… this is what they had spent the last six months planning and now they were doing this the right way. So she walked down the aisle and all the faces that were those of her family, her friends, her husband's family, and his friends. She smiled and as she passed Abbey and the girls she passed her eyes over the spot between Ellie and Abbey. Abbey smiled at her and mouthed 'love you' to Tess who passed and smiled. As she arrives at the front of the church she smiles at Evan. Josh lifts her veil and kisses her on the cheek, and he shakes Evan's hand. Tess takes Evan's arm and she smiles at him as the priest begins the ceremony.
I thought I saw him walking by the side of the road
Maybe trying to find his way home
It was later that day. Everyone was on the dance floor and Tess was dancing with JT, when the DJ stopped and everyone looked up to him. When Tess finally turned to the DJ stand she was surprised to see all of her female cousins standing there.
"Uh-oh," Tess says and then JT started laughing and there is dawning that happens on her face. She pushes him as he continues to chuckle. "You were supposed to distract me."
"Yup, come on lets get up there," JT says as he drags her to the front of the room.
"Tess darling this is for you and Evan," Carley announces from the stage.
Evan walks up and winds his arms around the Tess' waist. "What are they doing?" he whispers as she starts laughing and the music starts.
"A tribute," Tess says as she leans back into her husbands arms and "The Jackal" begins to play.
He's here but not here
He's gone but not gone
Just hope he knows if I get lost
It was another three weeks before Tess and Evan walked into their apartment again. Tess shrieked as Evan swept her off her feet and into his arms as he carried her over the threshold. She laughed and he dumped her on the couch and he leans over her giggling form and kisses her.
"That's the first time in almost a month I've heard you laugh like that," he says between kisses.
"It's been tough," she says holding his face in her hands she kisses him gently. He nods and sits still for a moment. Then he sits on the other end of the couch and pulls her into his lap, and they sit with his head resting on her head.
"Thank you," she whispers as she leans in to his chest.
"For what?" he asks with a chuckle.
"Being there, this is one hell of an initiation into this family of mine, but you were there and you stayed by my side through it all," she says as she pulls back and looks at him.
"I'm here forever Tess, it's you and me always, I'll be there no matter what happens," he says and then he smiles at her and laughs, "You can't get rid of me." He takes her left hand and his left hand and intertwines them so both of their rings are shining in the light.
"Good," she said before settling back against his chest with his face buried in his hair.
Shine your light down on me
Lift me up so I can see
Shine your light when you're gone
Give me the strength to carry on
To carry on
