All familiar characters are Janet's. The mistakes are solely mine.

"Would you like pancakes or eggs for breakfast, Olive?" Steph asked our baby.

"Panny egggggooo," she answered in her unique way.

"Oooooh, that's an even better idea ... pancake waffles! You're a brilliant little girl, you know that? You just keep making Mama proud over and over again."

"And she's cute as a button in that little sun dress," Edna added.

"We'll be back to a Jersey winter likely tomorrow, this is the last chance for us to wear anything hinting at summer."

"I approve," I said, once again eyeing my wife's legs which she's been leaving bare by choosing to primarily wear short shorts any chance the weather has given her.

Her goal this week, aside from trying to help her father, has been to soak up as much sun as physically possible before we have to return home.

"Behave," she ordered.

"Why?"

As I expected, she has no reason handy. I've never kept my love for her or her body to myself, and she knows there's no chance in hell that I'm going to dial back my appreciation today.

"Good question," she said to me instead. "Olive and I are going to go bug Chef Maddox and wheedle some breakfast out of him. What do you guys want to eat? I peeked yesterday while Mama Manoso distracted him for me, and there's Canadian bacon and Italian sausage down there, Dad, plus twenty different kinds of cheese. You could have a scramble like you order those rare times you eat breakfast out. Or there are at least nine types of oats for oatmeal if you'd rather go the healthy route. There's steel cut, old-fashioned, organic, quick-cooking ..."

"That egg scramble sounds good, but don't put him through any trouble."

She snorted. "Chef Maddox is still mad that I made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich and didn't let him grind the peanuts for butter himself or pit the whole uber-fancy olives he has on hand. You'll make his day by wanting something that takes some energy or skill."

Grandma Mazur tapped the tip of Olivia's nose. "Better be careful, baby doll. Your Mom's eatin' up olives right and left … you could be next."

"You are sweet enough to eat, aren't you?" My wife asked, burying her face in our daughter's neck.

Olivia all but danced in her Mama's arms, eating up all the attention, not olives.

"Don't suck up too much of that new toddler smell, Babe. I'll want some left to appreciate later."

She pulled back and grinned at me. "Gotcha. I have to share her. Do you want your protein-packed breakfast wrap and a side order of yucky yogurt again?"

"Yes. And can I request that it not be rainbow-speckled this time?"

"You can try, but Olive thinks a bowl of plain Greek yogurt looks really boring, and also a little sad, so she may try to put another dose of sprinkles in it before I can stop her."

"It's happened three times so far, Steph. Unless you're willing to admit that you don't watch her like a hawk, you'll have to cop to it being you behind the artistic expression."

She was already shaking her head. "I'm not willing to admit to either."

"Then I'm going to lock up any candy I see in the safe right beside my weapons."

She bent over where I was sitting and pressed a kiss against my mouth. "You do what you gotta do, and I'll do the same. You need a few happy sprinkles in your life."

"I have you, Babe. That's all the happy I need."

"Good answer and a really sneaky way of getting un-tampered-with yogurt."

"I'm the best for a reason," I reminded her.

"You definitely are. We'll be back as soon as our temperamental chef chucks us out of the kitchen."

"We'll be here," I told her.

Frank watched the small group walk off. Almost against their will, his eyes flicked briefly to me.

"How did you do it? How is Stephanie doing it?" He asked me while it's currently just the two of us on deck.

"How did I let myself love others? And how is my wife giving you a chance some would say you don't deserve?"

He didn't flinch this time. A positive sign. The only way to correct a problem is to first admit there is one. And in this case, he's a major contributor to the mother of all problems.

"Yes," was all he'd say.

"How much has Stephanie told you about our relationship?"

He thought about that for a minute. "She hasn't said very much. I know the two of you were friends, but any time Edna would get nosy and ask her if you two were an 'item' yet, Helen would mention that bastard Morelli's name and Stephanie would leave minutes later. I didn't even know your relationship had changed until one day Edna was celebrating the news that Olivia was on the way."

I gave him an abbreviated nod. That's what I had expected to hear, given the irritated recounts I would get from Stephanie about dinners she'd have there before she'd saved herself some stress and finally stopped going.

"I was in a similar place when I met Stephanie," I told my father-in-law. "I loved my family and my daughter, but to protect them from myself and my life, I kept my distance from them and never allowed them the opportunity to love me up close."

"But you … "

"Yes, now I'm extremely free with showing how much I love my wife and children and I don't give a fuck who knows it as long as they do. But it wasn't always so easy for me to do."

"What changed?"

"Your daughter walked into my life. As I got to know her, the more I wanted to love her even though I told myself that I can't … that she deserves someone better than me."

He looked uncomfortable. I'm hitting a little too close to home for him.

"You obviously changed your mind about that," he said after a beat, "since you're my granddaughter's father."

"I did. I had no other choice. Stephanie has known almost from day one that I love her, but she wouldn't let herself admit she felt the same until she knew her confession and her feelings would be safe with me. The moment she said out loud that she loves me, I felt that I had accomplished something far greater than anything I was awarded a medal for. If you want your daughter to eventually say the same thing to you, you're going to have to figure out the best way to convince her that you're a safe place for her to land on days when everything she encounters is hard."

"How do I do that when I've never been there for her or her sister?"

"First off, don't fuck with her feelings. If you don't want an actual relationship with her like she has with my parents, when we reach Jersey … walk away and don't look back. I will not let you get her hopes up only to destroy them again. I'll shoot you long before I allow you to hurt her."

"You do love my daughter, don't you?"

"More than anything, and I will do anything for her. Keep that in mind."

He went quiet as he thought through everything my threat implied.

"There isn't any 'secret' to having Steph love you, Frank. Despite her parents, she became one of the most caring people I've ever met. You only need to love her and never bullshit her. She can smell a lie three miles away, so another tip I can give you is to always be honest with her. If you're terrified to care about someone because you've learned that you can lose them in an eye-blink, tell her that … that you love her but you're worried it's going to take time for you to be comfortable expressing it. She understands that and how hard opening up to someone is. What she doesn't understand is … how her mother can treat her and Val like crap right in front of you and you refuse to step in and protect them from her, or the Morellis and Steves of the world while we're on the subject."

"She knew I would have stabbed that Diesel guy if he tried anything funny. I didn't trust him, the way he'd show up and disappear all the time."

"I know Diesel. You should have stabbed him, repeatedly. But if Steph believes you would at least attempt to put yourself between her and an overgrown frat-boy, you're not as far from a better relationship as you think. Your wife deterred a potential abductor, but she quickly had Stephanie feeling like Helen only hit the asshole with her car so she wouldn't lose her scapegoat, while getting another situation to beat my wife over the head with. Helen's selectively supportive … only being a 'caring parent' when it suits her needs or the appearance she's trying to project. Don't be the same. Love Steph or leave her alone. She's surrounded now by people who love her. Your job is to be a man and become one of them or love her enough to walk away so you won't continue to hurt her."

"And if I don't know how to be a father?" He asked.

"I, my parents, and everyone at Rangeman, will help you learn what Stephanie, Valerie, and your granddaughters, need from you. You've seen this week how Tank interacts with my wife and daughters, yet how he turns quiet and guarded when he's around people he hasn't cleared? Do you think it was any easier for him to love Steph and let her love him back? And you're lucky to only be dealing with your own feelings towards others, not others towards you based on your race or what they've heard about you from so-and-so's mother's, brother's, girlfriend's dog walker."

"I guess it's not easy for a lot of people."

"The men I employ are all-too-familiar with all types of trauma that needed to be overcome. You're not special there, but you are special to have a woman like Stephanie in your life. And you also have Valerie and her girls along with mine wanting time with you. Having experienced my family and the Kloughns all together at our place, I can honestly say they are all the incentive you need to sort your shit out. As a man who never saw a life for myself beyond a battlefield, I can tell you that you don't know what you're missing. You'll want a different life once you're fortunate enough to get to live one with them."

"This trip has opened my eyes to many things. I thought if I didn't think about Gioele, I wouldn't have to blame myself for letting him die …"

"You didn't kill him, Frank. If he wasn't willing to tell anyone he was struggling, you likely couldn't have saved him even if you had been there. He would've told you that he was alright, just having 'a bad day', and then waited until the next time he had a few minutes alone. Believe me, I know how hard it is to accept that as much as you want to, you can't save everyone. You have to let the survivor's guilt go and start remembering all the things about Gioele that made him so important to you."

"How?" He repeated.

"By talking about him ... with me, the doctors I employ, as well as your family. I promise you ... Steph, Val, and your granddaughters, would love to hear about who you were back then and also get some stories about Gioele so they can picture the man, not the grave we all just visited … which is what you need to start doing. He deserves to be honored and remembered, not just mourned."

"Are we interrupting?" Steph asked, coming back to the table with Olivia, Edna, and a rolling cart full of breakfast options, not just the ones we ordered.

I happened to notice something that looks suspiciously like someone experimented and stuck an actual cooked pancake into a waffle iron. My Babe strikes again and I'll now owe Maddox a bonus.

"Your presence is always wanted, Babe. Never doubt that."

"Call me braggy, but I don't doubt it. I'm even more confident about how happy you are to see me when I'm holding Olive or hugging Julie. You've never once willingly turned down a daddy/daughter hug."

"I won't turn one down now either," I said, holding out my arms for Olivia.

A smile from my wife or one from either of our girls has the power to break me even as it has me feeling invincible. My baby stood on my lap and began telling me, with a lot of animation, hand gestures, and her preferred sound effects, everything that she and her Mama had done in the kitchen.

I nodded and smiled when her voice rose in volume as she became even more excited when Julie and my parents joined us. Thanks to Olive's enthusiasm, Steph was still grinning when she doled out the plates and then sat down in the saved seat between her father's and mine.

She waved off the idea of a high chair for Olivia this particular morning and just cuddled our daughter in her lap when she was ready to dismantle her food. My wife's arms provided a loving cage for our daughter as she kept her chin or cheek against Olivia's head. My eyes met Steph's when our baby grabbed an Olivia-sized pancake, squeezed until it went from being a perfect circle to a jagged pentagon, and held it out for Frank to eat.

I could feel Steph catch and hold her breath. As if she were haunting our cruise, both Stephanie and I could hear exactly what Helen would say if our daughter ever offered her a mangled handful of breakfast, while neither of us could predict exactly how Frank would handle Olivia literally breaking bread in order to share hers with her grandfather.

He looked at Olive, and when she smiled at him while stretching her little arm further out in case he missed the fact that she's handing him a snack, I could see not only Frank lean in to accept her edible gift, but him taking a mental leap towards a new life.