Amanda Carisi had been interred in a small town almost an hour outside of Atlanta even though services had been held in New York where she had lived with Sonny. She had insisted on being buried with her family. He almost felt like she was choosing them over him when they had last discussed it. The fact that she wanted to be buried with them without a thought about what he might want had gnawed at him. And it was something he had been planning to bring up with her again. He thought they had time. Plenty of it. Turned out they didn't.

They had a quick graveside service with only himself, Jesse, and his son in attendance. He thanked the Lord that Amanda's mother never showed. He and what was left of his little family could finally grieve in peace.

Once the brief service had ended Sonny was left staring at his wife's fresh grave holding the little girl's hand in one of his own and his baby boy safe within his baby seat in the other. The cemetery workers were scheduled to come back and fill it in later that day. Amanda's coffin was lying deep in the ground sparsely covered with the dirt they had thrown into her grave during the ceremony. It was still mostly exposed.

Time. Time. They'd had plenty of it. And then suddenly they didn't. It ran out. And she was gone.

He dropped to his knees and Dominick's baby seat landed safely but roughly on the ground beside him. He let go of the grasp he had on Jesse's hand and the baby seat. He crawled forward and clawed deeply into dirt beneath him until he found his way to the edge of the grave and peered down into the gaping hole that held her coffin. His palms grasped the edge and held it tight as if he could somehow pull Amanda back up to him if only he didn't let go. He stared down into his wife's grave for what seemed like eternity. Then the tears finally came and dropped onto his dirty hands, steady and fast. Some of them fell all of the way down and splattered onto her coffin. He did not cry quietly.

He didn't even hear Jesse's worried, "Daddy?"

Nor did he hear when Dominick began to cry.

Instead when Sonny finally let go of his grasp on the edge, he sat back on his heels, lifted his head up, and screamed at the sky, to God. His fists curled at his sides, every muscle in his arms flexed. "WHYYYYYYYYYY!?"

He shook with the rage of his outburst.

In the background Jesse tried to soothe little Dominick - to get him to stop crying. But she had no idea how to calm him.

Why was her daddy crying like this? She'd never seen him this way before. She was very alarmed and felt unsafe, unprotected. Something was very very wrong. A knot formed in her stomach – in the gnawing pit of her stomach. She didn't know what to do and was ready to panic.

When the scream finally ended, her father was still on knees his crying hard. The he tipped forward and grasped the edge again like he never wanted to let go. Peering down into her mother's grave he whispered, "Please don't leave me 'Manda. You can't leave me like this. I won't be able to make it. I don't have what it takes to be strong for our kids. For our family. I don't think I'll be able to do it without you. I'm not as strong as you."

"Daddy?" Jesse asked her father again and he stopped crying, sitting back on his heels.

But to her horror he brought his filthy hands up to his face and covered it in dirt. The dirt from her mother's grave. He rubbed at his face and pulled at the sides of his cheeks in what appeared to be an effort to wipe away the tears that had soaked them. But by then Dominick had started screaming. Jesse was torn about which one she needed to help. After careful consideration she made her choice.

"Daddy?" she said again and knelt in front of him. Gently she reached up for his arms and he easily let her remove his hands from his face – his mud-stained face. He stared at her for a while before he hung his head and resumed crying. Jesse was scared again at having seen his face. His bright blue eyes had been surrounded by red veins, red lids, and had stood out vividly from the darkness of the mud that covered his face.

But she tried to stay strong for him and she remembered all of the times when she was sad that he would just hug her and tell her that he loved her. It would make everything right. It always did. He hadn't done that since her mama died – not even when she had really needed it. Nana Carisi had taken over that job for a while so she wouldn't feel so abandoned. But now it was just her and her daddy, together but standing alone in their sadness. And he was so very sad.

Despite the mud all over him, she crawled onto his lap and encircled her arms about his torso. She let the tears and the mud drip all over her because he needed her. Needed her to make everything alright. "I love you daddy, I really do. As much as mama did."

He hugged her tight and cried into her hair until his tears ran out. By that point Dominick had stopped screaming and crying on his own and was sleeping fitfully.

Sonny pulled Jesse back from their hug, but she remained seated on his lap. She looked up into his red-rimmed eyes and she noticed that the brightness of his red face had started to become visible through the mud that had remained - he had cried much of it off. He still looked so fiercely sad when he said to her, "Thank you, baby girl."

"Hey! That's what mama called me." Jesse brightened up a little bit. "Maybe she's still here."

He slowly shook his head and said to her, "No she's not. She's gone."

"No she's not," Jesse said adamantly and pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. "She's still in here."

Her daddy looked like he was going to cry again.

"That's why you used her words."

He nodded and a small smile formed on his lips, despite the tears that had threatened to spill over again. "She'll always be there, Jesse. Always."