Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark. - Bryce Courtenay
After the disaster of a year 2020 was, things were starting to go back to some version of normal six months into 2021. Access to the vaccine had been a game changer, and for the first time in over a year, there was finally a sense of hope again for both the world and their little corner of it in New York City.
The squad room was quiet for a Friday afternoon in the middle of June. Things moved fast for Fin and Phoebe after his New Year's proposal and they were getting married tomorrow in a small ceremony at her aunt and uncle's estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. Fin was already in Connecticut for the rehearsal dinner, Liv took the afternoon off because it was Noah's class picnic at school and she was the PTA mom in charge of it, and Kat's regularly scheduled day off was Friday, so it was just Amanda, the desk sergeant and a few other uniformed officers until the night shift detectives came on duty in an hour or so.
"Did you seriously just ask me that?! Are you out of your damn mind? No... no. Absolutely not. Oh, so you're going to hang up on me? Unbelievable," Detective Amanda Rollins muttered as she threw her phone across the desk and dropped her head into her hands.
She looked up when she heard his footsteps approaching. "Hey, what are you doing here?" She asked, her voice softening when she saw when ADA Dominick Carisi approaching her desk.
He shrugged. "I ran out of papers to push around on my desk and thought maybe you'd want some company until your shift ends." He dropped a bag on her desk containing a donut from the snack cart near the courthouse and then sat in the chair across from her.
Normally, she would have teased him about getting her the donut when he knew she was trying to watch what she ate, but after her most recent phone call, she was all for stress eating at the moment.
"I knew it was pretty lonely here today," he gestured towards the almost empty squad room. He frowned when he noticed the look on her face. "Something wrong? You have one hour left before you're off the clock and your exciting three-day weekend starts, I thought you'd be happier?"
Amanda sighed, and then bit her bottom lip, before sucking in a breath and letting it release slowly. "I'm not so sure that's going to happen anymore."
"Uh-oh."
"Yeah, uh-oh. A big uh-oh."
He sighed heavily. "What happened?" He reached over to rip a piece off of her donut and steal a bite.
"I just got off the phone with my mom. She flaked on watching the girls for me this weekend, and Sienna is out of town visiting her parents, so I don't have a sitter. My mom is unbelievable really," she scoffed. "She flaked after I told her that she couldn't take the girls with her to Atlanta this weekend when she was babysitting."
Sonny nearly choked on the food in his mouth. He coughed a few times before he could finally find his voice. "I'm sorry what?" He managed; eyes wide. Hell would freeze over before he would let that happen.
"You heard me." She blew out a breath again and her bangs fluttered. "Apparently, the one weekend I ask her to babysit the girls, she thinks it would be the perfect time to take them and my nephew to Atlanta to see "everyone" ….by herself."
"That has disaster written all over it."
"You don't need to tell me that. I was nervous enough about letting her stay with them at my apartment for a weekend, but just asking that question..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "I'm revoking any future babysitting privileges she may have had for a while. I can't trust her right now."
"Liv have a sitter?" He asked, hoping that there was still some way Amanda could attend the wedding. "Maybe her sitter can watch the girls."
"No, Noah's gonna stay at a friend's house.
"Oh."
"I'm really sorry our plans got messed up," she said softly, as she discreetly brushed her hand against his. "I'll miss you. Maybe you can FaceTime me from the reception for a little bit." She suggested sadly. "I feel terrible dropping out now and missing Fin and Phoebe's day, but I'm really going to miss you the most," she whispered. "I was really looking forward to this little weekend getaway."
They finally put a label on their relationship nearly three months ago, and it somehow managed to be new, exciting, comforting and familiar all at once. It was almost as if it was just a natural progression that was over seven years in the making. However, being that the actual label of their relationship was so new, not too many new people knew about it, officially. Obviously, Liv knew, and Sonny's boss at the DA's office knew, but other than that it was a closely guarded secret because Amanda was afraid – or maybe even superstitious – that labeling what they were would ruin everything.
Amanda wasn't sure how long they would be able to keep their relationship on the down low, though. Fin and Kat probably suspected something was different. She noticed the way Kat studied them ever since she said "the girls were at home with Carisi" on New Year's Eve. Then, there was Fin who tossed around a lot of comments about marriage when they were all in the same room, and she knew he was trying to get a reaction out of either one of them, but he just played it off as "wedding talk" since he and Phoebe were planning a wedding. Jessie and Billie were too little to understand most of the situation, but they were thrilled that Uncle Sonny spent even more time at the apartment with them and that he was there most mornings. And, although Sonny told his parents and his family right away that he and Amanda were a couple, she did not tell her mother a single thing about it.
So, this weekend was supposed to be special for them. Their first weekend away from the city after a global pandemic, yes, but it was also the first trip they would take together alone as a couple. They even booked a room at a little bed and breakfast (and not the hotel that was offered to wedding guests because they didn't want to risk having anyone from the NYPD catch them sharing a room). For as much as they both loved her girls, their time to be completely alone together was rare, so this was a highly anticipated weekend for them.
"Wait a second. I have an idea. Now, hear me out, here, huh?" He began – his face lighting up as he spoke – while he leaned over her desk so their face were only inches apart.
Amanda leaned forward in her chair. "I'm listening..."
"I can ask my parents if they'll watch Jessie and Billie."
Amanda blinked a few times. "You're kidding!" She exclaimed. When he didn't say anything else, she continued. "You're not kidding. Have you lost your mind?" She leaned backwards in her chair slightly.
"Oh, come on. It's the perfect solution. My mom will be thrilled, and you'll know that the girls will be safe, entertained, and well fed. It's a win-win." And if he were to be completely honest, he would say that he felt a hundred times more comfortable with the idea of his parents babysitting for a weekend instead of Beth Rollins.
"But, but..."
"But what?"
"But I've never met your family before and you want me to drop my kids off there for a sleepover?" She wasn't worried about the safety or well-being of the girls, as she knew with every fiber of her being that they would be well cared for, but she was worried about how it made her look. "Doesn't that make me seem kind of... kind of..."
"Kind of what?"
She shrugged, unable to come up with the right word to describe how it made her feel about the situation. "Tacky? Selfish? Rude? Like -here, people I've never met before, please watch my kids so I can spend a romantic night at a bed and breakfast with your son." If that didn't scream uncomfortable, she didn't know what else would. "That makes me seem trashy...Slutty even..."
"Slutty?!" His eyebrows nearly reached the top of his hairline. "Surely, you can't actually think that. You must just be throwing out random words."
"I'm serious! It's not a very good first impression of me. And I have two kids with two different men and you want to ask your Catholic parents to watch my kids while I sneak off with their son?"
He snorted. "We're not sneaking anywhere. They know we had plans to go to our friend's wedding out of town this weekend. Plus, my family is your family, whether you've met them before or not. I've been talking about you for years, Manda. They're all dying to meet you."
Maybe he did have a point, she realized. Mrs. Carisi always sent him home from his visits to Staten Island with extra food for her and the girls – and not just since they've been officially dating either – she had been sending food for years.
She recalled one-night –a few weeks after the Bucci ordeal- when she came home to find several containers of pasta e fagioli and a few trays of lasagna in the fridge. Sienna explained that Mr. Carisi said his mother made them for her and he wanted to drop them off before he went to work so she wouldn't have to worry about dinner when she got home. Amanda said something like "I don't think I'll have to worry about dinner for weeks now." And Sienna just shrugged and said, "I think food is the love language of Italians."
His mother also knitted both of her children baby blankets as christening gifts, his sisters always passed on toys and clothes that they thought the girls would like, and every summer his father would send bags and bags of fresh vegetables from his garden
"Okay," she nodded. "If they agree to it, yes, but only if it's not an inconvenience for them."
Smiling, he pulled his cellphone from his pocket, and scrolled through his contact list until he reached the line for his parents' landline.
"Hi, Ma." He began as he turned on the speaker phone and placed his phone on the desk.
"Sonny!" She exclaimed, her Italian accent heavy and noticeable in the simple one word greeting.
"I have Amanda here with me, too," he said, and then he nudged Amanda as he mouthed the words "say something."
"Hi, Mrs. Carisi." She managed, praying she didn't sound too awkward.
"Mrs. Carisi? Mrs. Carisi. Oh, Sonny, tell her she no have to call me that. It's so formal. Call me "Rosa" sweetheart."
She bit her lip. This was so unusual to her. She couldn't remember the last time she was introduced to a boyfriend's parents. "Ookay, Rosa."
"Oooh, much betta. Maybe someday you call me Ma, too," Rosa hinted with a deep laugh. "I sorry," she apologized. "My husband and my son tell me I shouldn't meddle. Mi dispiace."
Sonny rolled his eyes at his mother's not so subtle hints. "Ma, do you and Pop have plans Saturday afternoon into Sunday afternoon?"
"No, no. No plans. We're free all weekend."
"Is there any chance you guys would be willing to babysit Jessie and Billie? Plans with Amanda's sitter fell through and Fin's wedding is in Greenwich, Connecticut this weekend."
"Of course!" The woman nearly screamed. "I would be so happy to! I've been dying to meet Amanda and those precious girls for years! We can all have dinner Sunday! Dom! Dom! Come quick – I have news!" She called across the kitchen.
Sonny flashed Amanda a smug, and 'I told you so' look. "Thanks, Ma!"
They could hear shuffling and rusting before another deep Italian voice could be heard in the background. "What, Rosa? What? What?"
"Sonny and Amanda are going to a wedding in Greenwich this weekend. They've asked us to babysit Amanda's ragazze. Isn't that exciting?"
"Splendido."
"We're only going to be an hour or two away." Amanda began. "We can come home back Saturday night, if it's too much to keep them over night. I wouldn't want to impose..."
"Nonsense! You two have a nice weekend. We'll have pasta dinner Sunday when you get back."
"Jessie and Billie can be a little much..." Amanda continued. "Sometimes, they fight."
"We raised three girls of our own, A-mand-a," Dom replied, saying her name in such an old school Italian way that was different than his son's choppy Italian-American accent. It almost sounded exotic the way Dom Sr. pronounced it. "We can handle it."
"Okay," Rollins agreed. "Thank you so much for doing this."
"We're happy to!"
"I've been waiting so long for this!"
Came the simultaneous responses from Sonny's parents.
"I'm going to go fix up the room and get the crib ready. Billie's still in a crib, yes?"
"Uh, yeah," Amanda replied, wondering why Sonny's parents would have had a crib on hand.
"Okay. Okay. Amanda, darling?" Rosa continued. "Is it okay if I call you later? I want to get a list together for what the girls like to eat."
The thoughtfulness of his mother's question moved Amanda. "Sure, but they aren't picky. Whatever you make will be fine."
"I want them to feel out home. You know... how 'bout you call me when you get home tonight, yeah? Tomorrow morning, I go make sure I have their favorite snacks and cereal and juices."
After a few more moments of idle chit-chat, Sonny explained to his mother that he had to go, but promised Amanda would call her tonight.
"What?" He asked as he put his phone back into his pocket and caught the funny way Amanda was looking it him.
"Your parents have a crib?"
"Yeah. Don't all grandparents?"
"None that I've been around …"
Sonny shrugged. "They babysat my sisters' kids all the time when they were younger. They have a crib, highchair tons of toys, and books and movies. Jessie and Billie will love it – trust me - and my parents will have just as much fun as the girls. I think it will be good for all of the parties involved."
"If you say so, Counselor."
"Oh, I know so," he replied confidently.
A/N: I've been nostalgic lately thinking about my very Italian-American family and missing all the Sunday dinners we used to have at my grandparents' house, and I began to picture the Carisi family being similar to that when, lo and behold, this story was born. I also would like to imagine that in the 7 plus years of Sonny and Amanda's friendship, she would have met his parents already, but for the sake of this story, we're gonna pretend she hasn't.