They both looked up at the four-story duplex. It stood on red bricks and had dirty white ledges that framed the roof, windows and stoop. It had a dark green door with the numbers "323" in silver lettering. Not one window was lit. They could clearly assume that everyone was asleep or no one was home.
"Not the best time for a visitor." The Danny said lightly.
Mac was about to reply when they heard a little boy shout. "Mommy!!" Both men panicked and wondered what was going on. They saw the 3rd floor window to the right blinked on. Then a few seconds later they saw the left of the same floor, where the scream sounded like it came from, blink on as well.
The uniformed gentleman crossed the street to get a better point of view. His civilian companion followed him.
"What happened?" the blue-eyed young man asked.
The other man didn't reply. He didn't need to. He just looked up and the other man looked at the same 3rd floor window on the left. They could see an older man holding young boy in his arms. Then a woman came into view with a glass of water, which she offered to the little boy.
"He must have had a bad dream or something." He said, again he didn't get a reply.
The man looked like in his late thirties. He had dark hair with just a hint of graying. The woman may have been around the same age. She had shoulder length curly red hair. The boy in their care looked like he was about six years old. He was in his pajamas and his head was tucked under the man's chin. He hid his face as the two adults were cooing and whispering to him as he slowly relaxed.
"Good looking family." The blonde said. "Reminds me of those folks who smile too much in catalogs." He added sarcastically.
"I know you don't have the best point of reference, but don't have to be so cynical?" he asked rhetorically, finally answering his friend.
"Sorry, must just be a little j-." He answered.
"Jealous?" He asked, still looking up at the window.
"Jaded, but yeah, maybe a little bit." He answered honestly. "Like you said, I didn't have the best point of reference… I doubt that they really should have ever been." He added cryptically.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, curiously looking at him.
"I just remembered being very young and my uncles ignoring me. I specifically heard one of them refer to me as illegittimo." He explained.
"You mean?"
"Illegitimate child, a bastard." He said. "I didn't know it at the time, but my mommy had an affair less than a year before I was born, and the fact that I came out not looking like one of them didn't help me either… Honestly I think the only thing I ever got from my family is their last name, which sucks for me." He explained.
This was a really hard thing for him to talk about. He didn't know why he was telling this to a complete stranger. He hadn't even told anyone that he wanted to be a cop. He knew he was looking like chicken shit right now, and it was by choice. He just didn't know why. Why he felt like he could talk to him?
From the sound of his voice, the older man figured that this has been building up in him for a while. Maybe he's never been able to talk about any of this with anyone else before. He didn't know why he was talking to him, but he felt responsible to try to make it better for him.
"You know, families don't have to be perfect to work." He replied. "I mean just look at them." He added, nodding to the family up behind the window.
"Yeah, what's wrong with them?" he asked sarcastically. "They don't look very imperfect to me."
"He looks like his mother, don't you think?" he asked. The younger man didn't know how to answer that. The question just seemed to have come out of no where. He made that same clueless face that asked 'huh?' The older man didn't have to look at him. "The boy looks like his mother." he added.
This compels the young man to look again and closer this time, at the mystery family in 323 Edmund Street. The boy's face was now visible, but it was still slumped on his dad's, he assumed, shoulder. His head was covered with a mop of brown curls. His face was small and pudgy like what you'd expect from a child. He smiled at that thought that the kid looked like a doll position the way he was. The boy's mother, another assumption, was rubbing his back and whispering in his ear. She had wavy Irish red hair, the type that would remind you of an open fire. He looked at them and couldn't see the resemblance. They hardly looked like each other. He didn't know what his marine friend was talking about.
"What do you mean?" he asked him.
"I mean he looks a lot like his mother." he said, not breaking his sight of the boy. "His biological mother." he added. The blue-eyed young man was again speechless. He looks at the boy again and sees it: the hair, the nose maybe even his eyes. He did look like his mom, now he understood what Mac was saying, but before he could say anything the other man took the words right out of his mouth. "That's Claire's son."
Reed makes a very early appearance