"Son, your father asked you a question. It's quite rude not to respond when your elders ask you a question," Jennie scolded her son.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," Lee answered reverently when faced with his mother's unwavering gaze, "Sir." he nodded to both of his parents. Lee stared at them in awe, pinching himself to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. "I..uh...I..."

"Speak up, Son," Matt stated firmly. "What is it you were saying was no use?"

"Oh, it's...uh...nothing. Just...a... little misunderstanding."

"You and your Amanda seem to have a lot of those," Matt replied as he glanced the direction of the door Amanda had abruptly exited through.

"Yeah," Lee said with a sad nod. "But...I'll...you know...talk to her...We'll get it all straightened out just like we always do," Lee said with more confidence than he felt.

"You haven't an enormous amount of time to do that," Jennie cautioned.

"Now, now, Mrs. Stetson," Matt chided her as he slipped an arm around his wife's waist. "You shouldn't give away too much. That's not our part in this, my dear."

"Oh, right, you are, my darling husband," Jennie concurred as she slipped her hand into his.

"Your part?" Lee questioned as he hesitantly rose from his chair again.

"You'll see," Jennie said as he reached for her son's hand, "but you have to come with us."

"I...uh..."Lee hesitated.

"Son, don't you dare disobey your mother," Matt admonished, holding out his own hand as he released his wife. "Now, come on."

Lee stepped from behind his desk, took his parents' hands in his and instantly the office disappeared. He found himself in Amanda's familiar living room lavishly decorated for Christmas, remnants of wrapping paper strewn across the floor, the only figure in the room being Amanda sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, the Christmas tree to her left, the multi-colored lights and the glow of the fire the only light in the room.

Lee looked at his parents in bewilderment and said, "I don't get it. This is Amanda's house."

"It is indeed," Jennie replied.

"I don't understand. Aren't you guys supposed to be the Ghosts of Christmas Past?" When they both nodded, he said, "So, shouldn't you be showing me some soggy family memory like the last Christmas we spent together before you died?"

"While it would be lovely to take a trip back to the time when we were all together as a family, that won't help you in your current situation," Jennie explained.

"Go on, Son," Matt urged as both he and Jennie released their son.

As he approached the solitary figure, he soon realized that she was crying. No, not just crying, sobbing as if her heart was broken. He felt a sharp stab of pain go through him at seeing her despair. As he moved even closer, he saw that she held a framed photograph in her hands of her wedding day. He glanced back at his parents and demanded, "What the hell is this? Where are we?"

"You know where we are," Matt responded pointedly. "The real question is when."

"Okay, when then?"

"Christmas, 1981," Matt answered. "Now, just shut up and watch so you can learn what you came to learn."

Lee nodded and turned back to the weeping woman in front of the fire, his heart breaking for her and was startled to hear Amanda cry out, "Damn it!' as she violently lobbed the framed photo into the fireplace shattering the glass against its brick surface as the flames began to lick at the picture within it.

"Amanda, Darling, are you alright," Dotty West said her voice full of worry as she entered the room. "I hear a cra-" Dotty paused as she saw what had caused it, immediately rushed to her daughter's side knelt beside her and embraced her tightly. "Oh, my darling baby girl," Dotty cooed soothingly as Amanda sobbed into her shoulder.

"I'm a failure," Amanda whimpered softly between sobs.

Dotty pulled back, gripped her daughter by the shoulders firmly and berated her, "Amanda Jean King, you are no such thing and I want you to stop that kind of talk right now."

"I am, Mother," Amanda argued as she pulled back from her mother's grip on her and gazed sadly down at the wedding set still adorning her left hand, then yanked both rings from her finger staring at them with a look of deep longing on her face. "I failed. I couldn't make my husband love me enough to stick around. What does that say about me? This time next year, he won't be my husband anymore."

"Amanda, Darling, don't say that," Dotty said then added hopefully, "You only filed for divorce two months ago and since you have children, Virginia law requires that it take a year. Maybe you and Joe can work it out by then. There's still time..."

"No, Mother, it's over," Amanda shook her head sadly as she turned back to the fire and watched the diamond in her engagement ring sparkling in the firelight. "This time, it is really over. We've grown too far apart. He told me that he loves me, but that he's not in love with me anymore...and I...I guess...I feel the same way. There hasn't been any real fire between us for a while. I've really known it for a long time. I...I...just didn't want to give up. Marriage is supposed to be forever. I didn't want to admit that it wasn't working, that it had to end. We were making each other miserable more than we were making each other happy, but knowing that doesn't make it hurt any less." She then broke down in sobs again.

Lee, seeing Amanda's intense pain, made a move toward her. He wanted nothing more that to take her in his arms and comfort her, but was stopped by his mother's hand on his shoulder. "Don't, my son. There's nothing that you can do to help her. The past is done. This is something that she had to go through in order to be ready for you."

"For me?" Lee looked startled as he pondered Andy's words about his future. Did that mean that his future was supposed to be with Amanda?

"Watch and learn, Lee, my darling," Jennie replied.

Lee turned his attention back to the two women just in time to hear Dotty say hopefully, "Well, you know what they say, when one door closes, another one opens. Maybe this door closing isn't such a bad thing. Maybe there's someone better out there for you. Someone who will put your needs and the needs of your children ahead of his own the way a husband and father should, the way that you do. Maybe someday, you'll have that marriage that is meant to be forever."

"No, Mother, I'll never get married again. I don't think I could ever open my heart to another man again. After what's happened, I could never trust another man again not to leave me. As for me putting their needs ahead of my own, I think that's part of the problem. I let Joe run off all over the place and I didn't try hard enough to stop him because I knew how badly he wanted it."

"Amanda, that is just not true. You begged him multiple times to come home more often, to stay home with you and the boys and he was always so determined to save the world, to cater to the needs of strangers that he never saw how much he was needed at home."

"Mother, don't make him the bad guy in all this. I'm equally to blame. He wanted me to go with him..."

"Yes, and drag your children all over God knows where and who knows what could have happened to them in some remote region of the world where they don't even have basic necessities. You did the right thing for your children. That's what a good mother does."

"I'm taking their father away from them. That doesn't seem like good mothering to me."

"Nonsense," Dotty stated firmly. "He took himself away from them a long time ago and you've just been trying to fill the void he left ever since, long before you decided to end your marriage." Dotty stood and gestured to the scattered bits of wrapping paper around the room. "Just look at this. You made this a wonderful Christmas for those boys to the point that they never even noticed the absence of their father or how upset you were. They were so excited by everything you did for them to make this Christmas extra special that they didn't even have time to think about the fact that you and their father are divorcing."

Amanda smiled a little for the first time since Lee had been watching her and added in a slightly more upbeat tone, "Jamie sure loves his new bike, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does," Dotty said. "And you're going to have an absolute ball teaching him how to ride his first bike without training wheels."

"It was time. He just turned six last month," Amanda reminded her mother. She stood, glanced at the mess in the room, reached for the lamp on the end table and said with a heavy sigh, "I should really get this mess cleaned up. I've wallowed in self-pity long enough."

"That's the spirit," Dotty perked up and that and patted her daughter on the shoulder. "I'll help you."

With a force that felt like being slammed against a brick wall, Lee found himself back in the Q Bureau. "What the hell are we doing back here? I wanna' know what happened to Amanda."

"You already do, Son," Matt pointed out with a stern look.

"Take me back there. Amanda needs me," Lee insisted his anger rising at being abruptly yanked from her presence and angrier than he'd ever been at Joe King for breaking her heart and abandoning his family.

"Yes, she does need you, Lee, more than you know," Matt said, "But the past is the past and can't be changed. You saw what you needed to see to learn what you needed to learn."

"I don't get it," Lee vented in frustration. "What exactly was I supposed to learn from that?"

"It will all become clear in time, my darling," Jennie told him. "Now, it's time we take our leave of you. You have much more to learn before this day is over."

Lee awoke with a start, back at his desk and shook his head, saying, "What the hell just happened?" He needed a drink and badly. He bent and reached into the bottom drawer of his desk for the bottle of single malt scotch he kept there just for emergencies. He rose and turned to the credenza behind him was just reaching for a glass when he heard, "You know that stuff never did you any good," from a lilting female voice behind him, stopping him cold.

He turned abruptly and said in a low, almost reverent tone, "Dorothy."