Author's Notes: Enjoy, and thank you!
Moments
by Kristen Elizabeth
"What in the world is going on here?"
Three flour-dusted faces lifted, but only two of them smiled at Grissom as he entered the kitchen. The scene laid out in front of him was enough to make him smile, as well. His wife, his thoroughly modern, post-women's lib, anti-homemaker wife, was up to her elbows in the makings of chocolate chip cookies.
And she wasn't happy about it.
Samuel jumped off the little step stool he used to reach the counter and ran for Grissom, throwing his arms around his leg. "Daddy, I'm a dumb cookie!"
"Really?" Grissom said, ruffling his curls and sending up a cloud of white powder. When the little boy stepped back, he left an imprint of flour behind on his father's dark pants. "Who told you that?"
"I did, Daddy." Not to be outdone by her four year-old brother, Rosalind ran to get her own hug. Taller at seven and a half, she left behind flour marks on Grissom's suit jacket. "We're making cookies for my class because Mommy says she's not getting shown up by Ariel's mom again."
Over at the counter, Sara sighed as she gave the batter a stir. "Out of all the things I've told her today, that would be the one that sticks. Not 'put your shoes away' or 'quit teasing your brother'."
With the kids trailing after him, Grissom walked over and gave her a sympathetic kiss. "What are you doing, honey? You know the local bakeries depend on us for support. Don't they have copies of the kids' classroom schedules, and plan their monthly budgets accordingly?"
"If you're going to make jokes, you're going to work while you do." She pushed the spoon into his hands. "Ping-pong ball sized drops, approximately two point five inches apart on..." She reached for a cookie sheet. "...this."
"I'll show you, Daddy," Rosalind volunteered. "Ariel's mom showed me how when I spent the night. She makes cookies all the time. She's, like, the coolest mom ever."
Grissom didn't need to be looking at Sara; he felt her flinch. Rosalind chattered on, unaware, until he cleared his throat. "Rosalind, can you do me a big favor? Can you take your brother to the bathroom and help him wash his hands?"
She nodded with a little too much enthusiasm. "Come on, Sammy."
"I don'wanna wash my hands," Samuel protested.
Instantly impatient, Rosalind grabbed his hand. "Don't be such a child," she grumbled. Grabbing his wrist, she dragged him out of the kitchen.
Once the kids were gone, Sara pushed away from the counter. "We'll have to put eggs on the grocery list. I just used our last one."
"Sara, she didn't mean..."
She furiously scribbled on the sheet of paper attached to the fridge. "And brown sugar. Went right through that box."
He plopped batter onto the metal sheet. "If you don't want to talk about it, you can just say so."
"There's nothing to talk about, Gil." Time had taught him that when his wife used that tone of voice, the discussion was over. So Grissom just kept spooning out little mounds of cookie dough. After several minutes, his patience paid off. "I can't blame her." Sara threw herself into stacking dirty measuring cups and bowls in the dishwasher as she talked. "Of course Ariel's mom is the coolest mom ever. She works from home...some kind of online business. Selling cookies, maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that Ariel's mom doesn't keep a box of latex gloves next to the tissues in her car. She doesn't pick Ariel up from school smelling like a decomp. And in the middle of the first grade awards ceremonies, Ariel's mom's pager didn't go off telling her about a decapitated body on Fremont Street!"
"But can Ariel's mom read a DNA profile or differentiate between low and medium velocity blood spatter?"
"Like that matters in our daughter's world." She shook her head. "Face it. I'm one of those bad moms who can't volunteer for field trips. Or come at lunch time and eat with her kid. And all the food I send to school on snack days and party days comes from the bakery."
Grissom finished with one sheet and started on the next. "Do you think you're the only mother in that school who doesn't spend her days in the kitchen?"
"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?" she snapped. Her anger deflated immediately. "Sorry. That's not fair."
"I wish I could say I know what you're feeling. But I don't. There's virtually no pressure to balance both halves of my life."
Sara scowled. "When he's old enough, I am so signing up Samuel for Cub Scouts. Let you mingle with all the perfect dads."
"I'll pitch tents from here to Barstow if it'll make you feel better, Sara." Grissom paused. "What would make you feel better right now?"
"I don't know." She closed up the dishwasher. "No, I do know. I'd feel better...if I felt worse about this." When he glanced at her, she went on, "I love my job. It'll never be more important than the kids, but I'm tired of feeling guilty that I'd rather work an extra hour to solve a murder than hand-decorate Easter eggs for Rosalind's class."
He abandoned his post as batter scooper, and came up behind her. "I think baking four dozen cookies now lets you off the hook for the next couple of parties."
Sara turned to face him. "Tell that to Ariel's mom. She wants me to sign up to make brownies for the next Brownie meeting. Cute, right? Brownies for the Brownies." Grissom blinked and she pointed her finger right at his nose. "See, when I gave her that look, she told me to smile because it increases my face value."
"Technically, all smiling does is increase your wrin..." Wisely, he caught himself. "Will it help if I tell you I'll love you whether you bake brownies or not?"
"I suppose." Sara let him pull her into a hug. When he tipped her chin up for a kiss, she gave in and kissed him back.
"Yuck." In the doorway to the kitchen, Rosalind folded her arms. Her nose turned up at her parents. "Why are you always kissing?"
Next to her, Samuel copied his sister's stance. "Yeah. Why?"
The oven's timer went off just then, signaling that the first batch was done, and successfully distracting the children. "They're ready!" Rosalind shouted. "Mommy, Daddy...the cookies!"
Grissom looked at Sara. "The coolest mom ever would not let her cookies burn."
That earned him a look. And the responsibility of giving Samuel a bath later that night.
On the morning that the cookies were due at school, it was Sara's turn to drive the carpool. Usually she didn't mind the chore as driving two of her daughter's friends to school gave her a glimpse into Rosalind's social circle, a world that she instinctively knew would be harder to gain access to as the years went by. But that day she was focused on getting to the lab as soon as possible. She was at the beginning of a very public investigation and time was not on her side.
Ariel's house was the first stop, and one she was very slightly dreading. Ariel's mom always saw her daughter off, and usually managed, despite Sara's best efforts, to waste a few minutes on idle conversation. It was annoying how a woman who worked at home could be impeccably dressed and coiffed at seven-thirty in the morning, while Sara was still wondering if she'd remembered to put on deodorant.
Sara pulled her SUV into the driveway and plastered a smile onto her face as Ariel and her mother stepped out of their house. She reluctantly lowered her window as they drew closer.
"Good morning!" Almost instantly, Ariel's mom's expression went from chipper to concerned. "How are you?"
As they spoke, Ariel climbed into the backseat next to Rosalind. "I'm fine," Sara replied, keeping an eye on the girls in the rear view to make sure they were both buckled in. When she looked back, Ariel's mom was still giving her the same worried look. "Um...thanks?"
The blond woman shook her head sadly. "I saw you on the news last night. Do you really think that man..." She lowered her voice in deference to the children's ears. "...shot his wife and son?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation, Amy." She added a quick, "Sorry," to soften her words.
Ariel's mom tsked with sympathy. "I understand. My gosh...the horrible things you see, Sara. How do you keep your wits about you?"
She glanced in the mirror again. Rosalind was showing Ariel her new, sparkly pencil. Sara smiled softly. "You find a way."
As she backed down the driveway a moment later, she caught a bit of the conversation in the backseat.
"Your mom was on TV last night," Ariel told Rosalind with a fair amount of awe. "She's, like, the coolest mom ever."
Rosalind shrugged nonchalantly. "I know." She bit her lip. "Just don't eat your cookie at the party. Trust me."
They made a stop at the bakery on the way to school.
To Be Continued