We arrived at Mrs. Morelli's house for dinner on time. I think it was the first time I'd been anywhere with Joe that we were actually on time. The only reason it happened today was because he'd worked until the very last minute and just stopped in front of our house long enough for Bob and I to jump in the car with him and head to his mother's house. Joe must have had a suggestion from someone at the PD to put some gel or something in his long hair and he was looking especially fine. If he'd made the mistake of walking into the front door of our house, we'd have been late for sure. I just can't resist the man.
The Morelli zoo was in full swing when we got there. Bob is always thrilled to have so many people to pester and annoy. Joe is the baby of the family and he has 4 older siblings. He had been born when his mother was 38 and she never made it a secret that Joe's arrival was an unplanned blessing. Joe's dad died when he was young so he and his mother had been close forever. His Grandma Bella, his paternal grandmother, had moved in with his mother 10 years ago when they both needed help making ends meet. This was my worst nightmare. I did not want to wake up someday when my children were grown and realize that Joe was dead but his mother had moved into my house with me. I'd kill myself.
Regardless, here we are. Of Joe's family members, I know his mother and his Grandma Bella the best. They had been constants in the Burg when I was growing up. His siblings were quite a bit older than Joe and I so I didn't really know them until now. In fact, if there had been a test where I had to name everyone, I'm not positive that I would have made it through on the first try. Of all the kids running around there's no chance I could match them up with their parents.
Joe's eldest brother is Marc. At 46, he's a successful realtor. All of the Morelli men inherit charm and incredible Italian good looks. Marc is no exception. He has a wife, Barbara, and 4 children. Unfortunately, he also has a mistress named Shelly who is also sort of considered a part of the family. Joe, being close to his mother, and seeing what his Dad's womanizing had done to her, disapproves. That makes me incredibly happy because I really don't think he would ever cheat on me. Since my first husband did, and it left me a bit insecure, it is hard for me to say that, but I try really hard to have faith and trust in Joe and he's never given me any reason to doubt him. Joe and Marc are not on the best of terms because their value systems just clash. When Marc brings Shelly to family gatherings instead of Barbara and the kids, he and Joe inevitably end up in an argument at best and a real physical altercation at worst. Marc's been married to Barbara for 22 years and has been with Shelly steadily for 18. He has other girlfriends, too, but Shelly's the only one he's kept around long term. Because of his profession, he and Barbara have a lovely home in the suburbs with the kids, and he and Shelly have a nice condo downtown. Barbara knows about Shelly and she just seems to think this is part of the hand she was dealt. I made sure Joe knew that I believed this thought was a load of Bullshit. He agreed, but at least he knew how I felt. I was thankful tonight to see Barbara here with Marc.
Kathy is the next in line. She is a stay at home wife and mom to 2 teen aged children. Mike, her husband of almost 20 years is a computer programmer. Joe calls him a geek, but I think he's pretty funny, in a nice sort of way. She is a typical eldest daughter in a large Italian family. She is the peacemaker and usually does her best to help everyone she can. Kathy has always been supportive of Joe and she lets us know that she loves him. She's already accepted me as a sister and is working hard to make me feel like part of the family.
Tony is the next boy in the family. He is 43 and his wife is Angela. I tell Joe that she reminds me of Medusa (privately) because her hair is even darker and more unruly than mine. Tony and Joe look enough alike from the back that Angela admits to snuggling up to Joe accidentally more than once. I was making mental notes that Joe is NOT wearing a green shirt so that I didn't accidentally make a pass at Tony tonight. Tony's hair is shorter than Joe's too; at least now that Joe was growing his out. Angela and Tony have 3 daughters, ranging in age from 13 to 5. Tony has periodically showed the traits of the Morelli male. He has certainly strayed, and definitely has a love of alcohol and the wild side of human nature, but he seems to have been trying harder lately to be an adult. Angela adores Tony and wants so much to make it work. She left last year for a while. I think it was a wake up call for him. I hope they can keep it together. I don't know what will happen if they don't.
Joe always says that his Grandma Bella doesn't allow divorce. I guess that's true because I have never seen a Morelli divorce. They prefer to live long, unusually unhappy lives instead – or to die young.
Back to my chronology, Mary is the youngest next to Joe. She is five years older than him, at 41. Her husband is named Stewart and is an accountant. Joe has declared Stewart the 'Uber Geek'. Everyone understands when Joe says these things; it is with a smile on his face, at least most of the time. Stew is Jewish and that is a trial for the Catholic family, it seems. Another trial is that Stewart had two children from a previous marriage that Mary is helping to raise, but they have not been able to have their own children. They have tried for years, but every effort seems to have failed. Mary's distress at not being able to conceive just made Joe's and my experience even more difficult. Anyone who has ever had a friend or family member who struggles with infertility, low sperm mobility or any other conception issue knows that with every announcement of a new baby, it seems that the spotlight is turned around to focus on the issue of the 'unblessed' party.
Joe had warned me about this before we got to his mother's house. "Now, Honey, you need to understand something. Mary will cry when we announce the baby. She doesn't mean anything by it. She really wants a child of her own, but it just isn't happening yet. They have tried everything – in-vitro, sperm donations, homeopathic pharmaceuticals, surrogates, adoptions…I mean everything, but it just isn't working out. You need to understand, it isn't that she's not happy for us. She is just really sad for herself. Don't let it bother you. I know that's hard. It's just part of being in a big family. Everyone brings their own issues to the table. Mary's my favorite sister. She loves me and she'll be happy for us. Stewart's kids are great, but they aren't her own. She loves them and she wants the best for them. She says it's just not the same to raise someone else's child – she can't even adopt them because his ex-wife is still active in their lives so she feels like she's just sort of a 'spare part' of the family for them. Mary's 41 and the doctor says her chances are drying up for her to have her own child. She's pumped so full of hormones from trying to conceive, we have to be just about ready for anything from her. Short of her pulling a gun, just go with the flow." He smiled and winked at me for the millionth time today.
Oh, Boy. This 'pep talk' is really helpful. "I don't know your siblings very well at all. I'm a little nervous." I confided in him as we pulled up at the house. "Well", he said, "it's time to get over that right now." He gave me a peck on the cheek, put on a brave face and led me into the melee.
I met and mingled and visited with everyone. Joe's sisters and sisters in law were trying to make me feel comfortable and kept handing me glasses of wine, which I would either hand to Joe to drink or I would put down and conveniently misplace. I was the newest family member, next to the grandchildren in more than 10 years, yet they each remembered what it was like to try to assimilate into a family. Now that I think of it, I guess short of a spouse dying and being 'replaced' I guess I'm the last one to fall into place. The puzzle of this generation of the Morelli Mob is now complete.
Just before dinner, I glanced out the back door to the gazebo, where Joe and I said our vows just a few weeks earlier and saw him out there with 'the boys'. I was reminded what a great guy I had married and felt a wash of emotion as I focused on his mannerisms and his overt masculinity. Then I saw a cigarette in his hand. What is he doing? Joe doesn't smoke. I hate cigarette smoke. Ick. He was puffing and fuming away and talking with his hands, cigarette and all and I thought, 'who is this guy'? Do I know anything about this man? I have known him for over 30 years and I didn't think I'd ever seen him with a cigarette before. I'm sure he had smoked in high school with all the other thugs but I really didn't remember seeing it. He smokes and he has money in the bank. What have I done? I seriously thought I was about to melt down.
When he came back in the house, I confronted him privately in the hallway. "What the hell do you think you are doing? When did you start smoking?"
He almost looked embarrassed but not really. "I started smoking when I was about 10. I stopped smoking when I was 27. I only smoke now when I'm around Marc. It keeps me from beating the shit out of him." He smiled at me. He leaned in for a kiss, but all I could smell was cigarette smoke. I put my hand over my mouth and ran for the bathroom. Smells seemed to really be getting to me these days. I'd opened the refrigerator door this afternoon and realized too late that it was a mistake. I felt sick for a few minutes but it passed. Joe was chewing gum when I came back out. He apologized and said he'd try to be more considerate in the future.
We settled in for dinner. All of the grown-ups were parked around the table in the dining room and it was completely packed with each of us having about 14 inches of space. Our chairs were literally touching each other. This room and table were made for about 8 people and we had 12 around the table. In addition to the 12 adults, there were 11 'children' from age 20 down to about 5 scattered at kid's tables throughout the house. Then, there was Bob who was going person to person seeking donations.
Everyone in the entire family seemed comfortable and happy to be together and everyone seemed to love each other as well as all of the kids. It was a happy family and a wonderful night. Joe proudly announced our child's coming and everyone erupted in well-wishes, toasts and happy smiles, predictably except Mary. Her huge brown eyes filled with tears. Stewart had an 'oh shit' look on his face and knew that he was in for a long night. Mary tried to convince me they were tears of happiness but I realized they were not. She so wanted a child of her own.
Something that came easily, even accidentally, to us, had eluded her for many years. How could something that forced me into panic be the same news that would have brightened her life forever? I felt guilty for not being happier sooner about our baby, Muffin. He really was truly a gift. This baby was proof that I loved Joe and he loved me. This was more than just a physical thing. Joe and I loved each other. We'd always been meant to be together but it took both of us a long time to grow up and understand that.
The wine flowed freely and the food bridged any gaps the inhabitants of the home felt. It was wonderful. I felt like a lucky girl to be part of it all. I was only mildly embarrassed by all the jibes everyone took at us about how we got pregnant and what children do to your sex life.
It was almost time for dessert when the dinner conversation took an interesting turn. The family was reminiscing about Joe's childhood and young adulthood that brought him to this point. While everyone agreed he'd make a great father, I think they questioned how he'd ever lived this long after being a wise-ass street thug. Tony summed it up when he said now that Joe was just a wise-ass Vice cop. Finally, Kathy said, laughingly, "I can't believe you even lived after all those times Terri shot you."
Between sips of red wine, my charming husband laughed and said, "K, Terri just shot at me a few times. There's a difference between shooting someone and shooting at someone. If she'd wanted to, she would have hit me. Terri's a damn good shot." He was smiling broadly. Then I think he realized that I wouldn't be happy about hearing Terri's name. His face sobered.
"What did so do that made Terri shoot at you?" I asked him with my eyebrows shot up 3 inches.
He looked at me and said. "With Terri, it's always about what I didn't do, not about what I did do. Besides, I probably usually deserved it when she shot at me. Sort of like I deserved it when you hit me with your dad's car and broke my leg."
I noticed
that Mary, Barbara and Kathy looked at each other and their eyes lit
up. They all jumped from their chairs simultaneously and ran to
embrace me. I had no idea what was happening until I was already
sandwiched between them all in a strong hug and Mary said, "It was
YOU! We've wanted to congratulate the girl that broke Joe's leg
for YEARS.
We didn't know it was you! This is so CUTE! We
knew there were probably hundreds of girls who wanted to run over our
baby brother with a car but we knew the one that actually did it was
going to make an impression and now you are married and having a
BABY!" This pronunciation brought on a fresh onslaught of tears
from Mary, but they seemed like happier tears than they were earlier
because she, Barbara and Kathy were all laughing.
Joe had a considerable amount of wine so he handed me the keys to take us home. I don't think he was drunk, but he wasn't taking any chances. I must admit, as Joe Morelli gathered me into his arms at our home that evening, I felt lucky. I was lucky to be his wife, lucky to be the mother of his child, and lucky to have made it through a full evening with his family. Our great evening soured because I didn't know when to keep my mouth shut.
"What the hell do you mean, I never asked you to marry me?" Joe shouted. "Of course I asked you to marry me. Otherwise, how do you explain that big wedding we had in my mother's backyard? I specifically remember about 6 months ago, you said, 'Let's get married on June 3rd at 7 in the evening.' I said, 'okay,' and to everyone's surprise, you actually showed up at my mom's house and so did I along with about 200 of our closest friends and relatives. I'm pretty sure I had to ask you to marry me or that wouldn't have happened." Joe was standing up and pacing and raking his fingers through his hair. His eyes were tired looking and seemed to have a bit of fire in them. I hadn't really intended for this to be such a big deal.
It all started when he was trying to get me to stop worrying about he and Terri Gilman needing to 'look and act like' a couple in Detroit. I'd asked exactly what that meant and asked for clarification on a few details. Unfortunately, he was trying to prove that he loved me and it backfired a little bit. He had said, 'Cupcake, I had to ask you to marry me a lot of times before you said yes, but I promise Terri Gilman has proposed to me more times than that. If I wanted to be with her, I could have been, but I love you. You are the only girl for me and the only one I have ever asked to marry me. I don't think I've even told anyone else that I loved them before you.'
Of course, I popped off when I shouldn't have and I said, 'You never asked me to marry you.' This is what started Joe on his ranting, pacing and mumbling speech that was still in progress.
I reminded him, "You never asked me to marry you. You talked about us getting married. Your mother asked if we were getting married and you said 'yes' and anytime anyone else mentioned it you would talk like you'd asked me, but basically, you left out that little step. The only person who has ever asked me to marry him is Dicky Orr. After you talked about us getting married for so long, then you stopped for a while. You still never asked. Then I had to wait until you mentioned it again to tell you I was ready. No engagement ring. No proposal. It's awfully hard to tell people you are engaged without those two little things. All my family thought I was delusional. I was just going on the assumption that you meant it when you said you could come to the wedding if I planned one." I'd held it in long enough.
"Shit, Stephanie, if I was screwing this up, why didn't you tell me? I'm only going to do it once. If you wanted it to be different, you should have told me when I could have corrected it."
"I'm not saying I wanted it different or that you screwed it up. I'm just setting the record straight. You just never actually asked me to marry you. That's all. But Terri Gilman asked you, huh?" I tried to steer the conversation in another direction.
"I think so," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not sure anymore." He sat down next to me and furiously surfed channels for a few minutes. Then he turned the TV off and used a finger on my chin to direct my eyes to his. "Listen, honey, we need to make this marriage work. For that to happen, you have to stop giving me credit for thinking about things more than I do. If you wanted me to do the proposal differently you should have told me."
I was starting to squirm in my seat. I really hadn't meant this to be one of 'those' discussions. I'd been married before and knew that these discussions never turned out well. When a man actually looks you in the eyes, he is serious. You should never go there unless there was a really big problem.
Joe continued, "One of the best things about you and me is that we don't typically expect a lot of over the top stuff from each other. The bigger issue is going to be when you need me to do something that I'm clueless about. I've heard Mary and Kathy complain for years about how their husbands don't pay enough attention to them. They think Stewie and Mike are supposed to be mind readers. I hate to let you in on this, but guys just don't think that hard unless we have some reason to." He was pacing again at this point and that was a good thing since he wasn't doing the eye staring thing anymore.
"I was the happiest guy in the world when you finally said you'd marry me. I just didn't think it would ever really happen, so I'd tried to quit pressuring you. I didn't know you were waiting for me to do it 'right'. Hell, I didn't know there was a right way to do it. I remember being a little kid one time when Mary and Mom were talking about how every little girl wanted some guy on a white horse to ride up and rescue her. At that time, I remember thinking I'd never even seen a white horse and I didn't know what they needed to be rescued from. Shit, when I became really aware of you in high school, I probably thought 'now that looks like a girl who isn't looking for a white horse.' But you were obviously looking for it and I missed it."
Joe was really on a roll. He was using his hands and talking to the ceiling a lot. I was just another piece of furniture at this point. This is a real Italian soliloquy. "You have to tell me that kind of crap! If something is important enough for you to bring it up after the fact, it needs to be important enough to bring up before you feel like I screwed something up. When I took you to pick out wedding rings I was surprised you didn't pick out a set with an engagement ring, but you seemed to like these bands okay." He was right; I loved the simplicity of our matching gold wedding bands.
"I can't fix it now, but when I come home I promise you I'll take you to pick out an engagement ring. I honestly didn't have a clue you wanted one. I guess I should have." He looked a little defeated. Now he was looking at the floor and I couldn't see his eyes because of his damn hair.
Joe didn't have a romantic bone in his body, but he seemed to be apologizing for it now. I was flattered. He'd gotten by all these years with all the sexy bones in his body. He had plenty of those.
"Oh, Joe," I said, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or to tell you that I felt like I'd missed something. There are just times when you wish your husband really 'knew you' well enough to just know what you want without you having to tell him. That's all."
"Do you want to know if I know you? Is that it?" He had brushed his hair back. He winked, put on his sexiest pair of dark, dark brown eyes and sought out the depths of my soul with them. Then he said, "I think I know you pretty well. I know exactly what you want to do right now. You want to go upstairs and take off all your clothes, including your undies and then you want to put on my orange t-shirt that's even too big for me and my red sweats that have the elastic cut out at the legs. They are too long for you and they just flop over your feet like slippers. You want to put your hair in a pony tail and you want to wander into the kitchen hoping to find that a bag of Boston crèmes has magically appeared on the kitchen counter, which it has because I brought them home for you at lunch, by the way. Then you will come back here and tell me it's time to put Bob outside on his backyard leash."
I was smiling. He was perfectly right so far. "I know you are just dying to steal my Corona, and if you weren't pregnant, you would already have figured out how to take it away from me and I would have had to go get myself another one out of the fridge." He took a big pull on the beer and then kissed me deeply, sharing the taste with me that I missed so much. "Any other guy would have learned this was coming and just started bringing you your own bottle, but I think it's cute that you work so hard to swipe mine." There's that smile again. He was melting my heart.
"Then, you'll curl up and snooze in this warm spot that I have left on the sofa while I go upstairs and take a shower. Next, you want me to come pick you up and carry you upstairs to bed." Joe was still looking into my eyes and reading me like a book.
"You will have brushed your teeth and left your clothes in the bathroom floor by the time I get back upstairs with Bob. Since we've seen my family this evening, I owe you. So I'll walk in the bedroom door and stop to admire your incredible body and then you'll announce that, since I owe you, and all, you get to be on top. You still like to wrestle for it, so I'll try to take over, but then I'll let you win." He was chuckling and looking so sexy. He really did know me. And he loved me anyway.
"So, do you forgive me for being a clueless man?" He ran his thumb across the side of my neck, sending tingles down my spine and then he kissed me again.
"As long as you'll forgive me for being an unreasonable woman." I hugged him close to me. I was thinking it was time to skip the middle and go straight to the end of his prediction.
Something about my pregnancy has made me feel like more of a woman than I've ever felt before. I notice more details. I am more frilly and fragile feeling. I feel less independent. As much as I hope it is temporary I think I it is normal and Joe notices it, too. He is more communicative and clingy with me. We both feel a little off center and we don't know how to fix it. It isn't a bad feeling, but it will take some time to get used to it. Time is the one thing we don't have much of.
He caught my hand before I went to put on his t-shirt and sweats, "Now, Cupcake, I do think I know you, but I don't know crap about jewelry. I've never seen you wear a ring in my life until the wedding ring you picked out. Just because I could pick a t-shirt or a pair of sweats for you, doesn't mean I could pick out a ring that you have to wear forever. That's why I took you to do it instead. More importantly, you have to tell me if I'm screwing up from now on." He did the eye searching thing again. "Are we okay?"
Those are the last words he got out that evening. I basically just led him upstairs and reassured him that everything between us was wonderful.
When we get up tomorrow morning, there are 5 days left before Joe leaves and we need to make the most of them.