The Anniversary to Remember- Chapter Two

Maura finished putting her luggage in the trunk of the SUV. She was happy that Jane had relented and agreed to take Maura's Mercedes instead of her Mini-Cooper. Maura liked Jane's car when they were in the city, but for a long drive, such as this drive to Vermont, she preferred her Mercedes GLA. She walked back into the house and could hear Jane was still upstairs. "Jane, do you have anything ready to go down to the car?" Maura went upstairs and found Jane in their bedroom where she was struggling with the zipper of her overstuffed suitcase. "Jane, we're not running away from home, we are coming back you know." Jane tugged at the zipper a few more times, her frustration all the more evident. "Okay, Maura you're going to have to sit on it." Maura just looked at Jane with a blank stare, but Jane continued "come on Maura, just hop up here and sit on the suitcase." Maura laughed as she perched herself on top of the suitcase. Jane tugged again on the zipper and it finally closed. "Thanks Maura, I'm all packed." Maura slid off the suitcase and gave Jane a hug. "Well then, I will get this down to the car. As I do that, why don't you get Alice. All her stuff is already packed." Jane went into the nursery and picked up Alice and placed her in the baby carrier and secured all the straps. Jane grabbed the large diaper bag and picked up Alice and proceeded to the stairs, where Maura was waiting for her to take Alice. "Well we need to get going so we can drop Alice off at Angela's and then get on the road to Vermont." Jane proceeded downstairs and climbed into the passenger seat of Maura's SUV. She was happy that Maura was driving as the pain was bad this morning, she had pushed herself to hard yesterday, and as frequently happens ends up paying the price the next day. Maura looked at Jane and could tell she was in pain. "Did you remember to pack your pain medication?" Jane nodded and Maura continued " on a scale of one to ten how severe is the pain?" Jane thought for a moment, "it's at least a five." Maura calculated that Jane always minimized her pain so assumed that it was likely a six " I think you need to take one of your PRN tramadol pills." Maura was ready for resistance but their was none, so we're at a seven. "Jane, do we need to call your pain management doctor?" Jane shook her head "I'll be fine, let's get going." Maura glared at Jane, "It's a long ride, I'm sure if we call your doctor she'll prescribe something..." Jane interrupted Maura "I don't want to spend the whole weekend sedated and that's what will happen if we call my doctor." Maura nodded and started the car and started towards Angela's.

Jane looked over at Maura, "so when we landed at Logan, I knew we were in for trouble. Ma wasn't there waiting for us and Frankie and Tommy were nowhere to be seen." Maura smiled "we had to take a taxi, and then when we get home only to find that Angela had moved out." Jane laughed "poor Tommy! Well the only thing that seemed to work itself out that first week back from Paris was my job and of course my discovery of your love of Tiffany's." Maura turned off into Angela's neighborhood "well I figured you'd eventually get the hint." Jane smiled "opening my computer to Tiffany's webpage for engagement rings, that's a real subtle hint! Well getting my job back and a promotion to sergeant meant I could afford it." Maura turned down a side street, "What was the deal with the promotion again?" Jane thought for a moment "Well it was tied to my new assignment that I pass the sergeant exam. Technically I hadn't separated from the BPD yet since I was still considered on leave because I had one week of vacation days left that I was going to use for the move to Virginia. So after talking with Lieutenant Cavennah he made some calls and was able to pull my resignation. Then he sprang the sergeant exam on me because there was this new joint taskforce that I was being considered for now that I was back, and I would need to be a sergeant to serve on it. The Joint Taskforce On Organized Crime aka The Gangbusters!" Maura rounded the corner to Angela's street "I was really proud of you! You had three days to study and you passed an exam that takes many people several tries before they pass it." Jane smiled "I remember stopping by the Dirty Robber the day after passing the exam and seeing first thing he said as I walked through the door was where is your better half! So I knew he had been talking with Ma, but he wasn't taking sides, he congratulated me, and said I better treat you right." Maura smiled, she had never heard this part of Jane's talk with Vince before and Jane continued "So, I told Vince, about returning to BPD and my promotion, and he said this taskforce would make me a lieutenant by the time it wrapped up and put me on a fast track to captain. Then I showed him the ring." Maura pulled into Angela and Ron's driveway. Angela saw Maura and Jane pull in, and walked outside to greet them. She happily helped Maura with her granddaughter and carried in the large diaper bag for her. "Now you two have a good time this weekend and don't worry about Alice, we're going to have so much fun together!" Maura smiled as she gave Angela the obligatory list of phone numbers. "Maura, she'll be fine, now get going or you and Janie are going to hit traffic." Maura was back in the car and they were finally on the road to Vermont.

Maura smiled in a playful way "okay, so I'm driving, you know what your job is don't you? " Jane looked over at Maura as she pulled onto the interstate "navigator?" Maura laughed "no silly, tunes! You're in charge of the music. Now get to work and put on some good driving music!" Jane reached into her pocket and took out her smart phone and started to look for her play lists. Maura looked over and smiled "Jane, take a look on the back seat." Jane looked behind her and noticed an old CD case. "Is that my CD case, I haven't seen that in years." Maura nodded "Yes and as I recall you put together a driving mix for me, so where is it?" Jane looked through the CD's until she found the jewel case that contained the mix she put together for a road trip years before. Jane inserted the CD in the stereo and it filled the cockpit of the Mercedes SUV with music. Maura smiled and started singing along with the song "come on Jane, you know this song." Jane smiled and nodded then joined Maura in the refrain.

"It's amazing how supportive your mother is nowadays, when you consider how angry she was." Jane thought back "you know things are bad with my mother when she won't speak to you, and will only write notes." Maura shot Jane a look "so that's why she wrote you a letter?" Jane nodded, "Yep, actually the fact that she wrote a letter means we took this to entirely new stratospheric level." There was a long silence "Jane you never told me what she said." Jane thought about it for a moment "it was hurtful, but she has taken it all back and apologized, so..." Maura realized that she may have touched on a sore point "I'm sorry Jane." Jane looked over at Maura "No, it's okay, she was really angry, so after several days of not speaking to me she writes this letter and sends Tommy over to deliver it. In it she said I was the biggest disappointment in her life. It was like she didn't even have a daughter at all. She pointed out how as a child I was always a tomboy and how she always thought there was something wrong with me. She hated the fact that I became a police officer, instead of finding a man and getting married and raising a family. And now she said the fact that I could publicly humiliate her by doing this just proves that I am sick and she wanted nothing more to do with me." After a moment Jane added "I really felt like I lost my entire family." Maura saw a sign for a rest area ahead " Jane there is a rest stop coming up, do you want to stop? Did you ever consider ending our relationship, and not marrying me?" Jane looked over at Maura " Yes, No, I mean yes, let's stop at the rest stop and no I never for a moment thought about not marrying you."

It felt good to stand after several hours in the car. Jane knew Maura had been upset by hearing about the letter that Angela had written. She had deliberately kept from showing it to her at the time, and even now years later she could tell it hurt her to think that Angela could say such things about the woman she loved. "I told you about stopping by the Dirty Robber and seeing Vince, the day after passing my exam. Well may main reason for stopping was to arrange our engagement party. This was the day after I received my mother's letter. I never for a moment thought that marrying you was a mistake. What I thought was my mother was being her typical overbearing self, but she had pushed things to far this time." Maura hugged Jane "I thought you and Angela were going to start a bar fight!" Jane laughed "So did Vince! Well I was happy that Frankie and Tommy came to the party and brought Ma, I think they were hoping she would stop being angry once we all were in the same room, and that we'd reconcile once she saw how happy we were." Maura smiled "that had to be Frankie." Jane agreed. "I knew it wasn't going well when after not saying a word for almost an hour Ma suddenly said [so where are you two planning on getting married, the back of traffic court? Because Father Joe won't marry you. As far as he's concerned you're going to Hell!]" Maura smiled "I knew things weren't going well when you responded by saying [don't worry Maura and I are just going to fly to Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator!] You had to know that she wasn't going to like that." Jane just shook her head "well after she said that we were going to Hell I really didn't care." Maura nodded "but I could see that she felt hurt, and that she was lashing out more out of a sense of woundedness." Jane agreed "I know, but she doesn't realize how she hurts the people she lashes out at." Maura helped Jane back into the car and they proceeded to get back onto the highway and crossed into Vermont. Maura smiled as she glanced down at her hand "you know you picked out a beautiful ring."