Chapter 27

When Dunphy met me at the airport in Trenton, I felt light as a feather. Five days in Seattle had been marred by a kidnapping ordeal, but . . . you know, spending time with Joe was just what I needed to set the world back on the right track. He'd reminded me that our family was important and that I was important to him. Joe Jr. was coming to join us soon and I needed to be ready for him. I was already more than anxious for Joe to return home. I was so proud of him and the job he was doing. I'm sure it is the hormones, but every time I think about him ridding our society of the bad guys, I'm overcome.

Okay, yeah, it's the hormones. I rid our society of the bad guys, too. I'd read some of the files on the flight home from Seattle and thought I may be able to clear some of them up between Christmas (tomorrow) and New Years. Yes, I'd had Lou Gilman's file with me all the time and yes, I probably would have tried to bring him in all by myself given the information I'd had on him.

I talked Dunphy's ears off on the way from the airport to our house. I told him about Gilman's kidnapping me and his subsequent confession of Jeri Stephenson's murder. Lou had admitted killing her on Genieve's orders due to the fact that she was ready to break up with Tommy Takata and expose the operation to the Feds. At that time, it seems, the business at hand was to load imported cars with illegal drugs and a few guns. The merchandise was concealed in the panels and upholstery of the vehicles prior to import. Joe had said that Lou was an honest auto mechanic before he got mixed up in all the mess with the Grizolli and Genieve families. I was inclined to believe that. Lou had seemed so sincere and nice before we got to the hotel where he transformed. I clung to that idea to get around the fact that I had been in real danger.

Lou had admitted to breaking into Joe's and my house while I was in Detroit with him in October, again on the premise of finding Terri. I really do think the poor guy is head over heels with her. I can't wait to see Ranger and see if he survived his encounter with her sans medical care. I don't know whether I'm disappointed in him for showing poor taste, or proud of him for holding his own with her. I feel a little conflicted and more than a little ashamed to admit that I'm jealous, again, of her relationship with a guy I considered 'mine'. That's the way I've always been. Even if I didn't personally want a guy, I didn't necessarily want anyone else to have him either.

Dunphy delivered me safely home around 5:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. I took the opportunity to ask him if he would do Joe and me the honor of being Joe Jr.'s Godfather. He was overwhelmed. I could tell. He couldn't even look me in the eye. Then he cleared his throat and said, "Friend, if this is your way of getting me to tell you my first name, God will punish you." With a shy smile, he walked slowly back to his car. I knew he was touched to be asked.

Joe and I had decided to ask Dunphy and Mary Lou to be Joe Jr.'s Godparents. Dunphy had done more than his share for us during Joe's assignment and Mary Lou was my oldest and best friend.

Per tradition, at the Morelli household of origin, the 'family' Christmas was to be held the first Saturday after the actual holiday. The logic for this was the old adage, "A daughter is a daughter for all her life and a son is a son 'til he takes a wife." Angie Morelli understood that her 3 sons would need to spend Christmas with their wives' families. This met the Burg standard and only left Joe's sister Kathy's family out in the cold on that day. See, Marc, Tony, and Joe would have been expected to spend the holiday at their inlaw's houses. Mary's husband is Jewish and Christmas…well, they didn't make much of a fuss about it – especially due to the fact that his kids would be with his first wife's family on that day, and they hadn't been blessed with their own. Therefore, I didn't have to put in an appearance on Christmas Day at Mama Morelli's house.

My own family was in rare form, of course, as usual. Try as she might to get me to spend Christmas Eve night with them, I was able to postpone actually seeing my mother and father and the rest of the crew until Christmas morning. The majority of my reticence came from the fact that I truly was exhausted and ready to be at home. My home. Our home. This would be my last quiet Christmas Eve. Next year, there would be Joe and a baby bustling around the house. In the several years after, Joe and Joe Jr. would be joined by our other children. Once the chaos turned into relative quiet in 20 years or so, grandchildren would join the chorus. This year, it was me, Bob, Rex (neither of whom were speaking to me after leaving them with Grandma for almost a week) and my thoughts of Joe.

He had, of course, gone back to Detroit to rejoin Terri and see how much damage had been done to the undercover case by the fact that he may have blown his cover in Seattle with Gilman.

Dunphy had teamed up with Mary Lou while I was gone and they had put up a small tree in our living room. The twinkling colored lights were reflected in the blown glass ornaments they had used. They had carefully written on them in gold marker things like "Our First Christmas", "Joe loves Stephanie", "Bob", "Rex", and "Go Mets" – Dunphy's contribution, I'm sure. Sometime during the evening, I fell asleep on the sofa, watching those lights twinkle, Bob curled around my feet. I was disoriented when the telephone rang. "I found it," I told Bob, who was rushing around the room in response to my own rushing around the room.

"Hello?" I croaked. I glanced at the clock. Midnight. It was Christmas now.

"Cupcake! Hey, Honey, I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. I guess you got home okay." Joe. How sweet for him to call.

"Yeah, I'm great. How about you? Is everything okay there?" I was ashamed that I wanted him to say 'no'. I wanted his cover to have been blown and for him to tell me that he was headed home to me. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

"Yeah. News of Grizolli's bust has reached here, but for whatever reason, they either don't know or don't believe I was involved. They know that Gilman is a flake, so maybe they think he's insane when he says I brought him in."

I could hear the nice smile in Joe's voice. I was used to being around Joe again, and that voice made my spine tingle. Just when I was ready to tell him that I would have jumped him if he was here in person, he started talking again. "They really think I was jailed in Trenton. Tommy and Sara Takata actually feel sorry for me because Terri cheated on me with Ranger while I was gone. That's such a hoot. Tommy told me today that he hopes I use a condom when I'm with her because he really didn't like the looks of the creep she hung around with when I was gone." Joe was laughing like a fool.

Real funny, Buddy. "Ha Ha." I said, not convincingly.

"Well, I should go. I love you, Cupcake. I miss you. This is the only Christmas we'll ever spend apart. I promise." His voice was warm and comforting. I could hear Darth Greyder mewling in the background. Knowing Joe, he'd tucked him into his jacket and snuck him into the convenience store where he was calling from. "Hold the baby in there just a few more weeks and I'll be there with you when he comes. I love you. Bye." Before I could find my voice, he was gone.

The next morning came way too early for me and Joe Jr. We could have slept another 3 hours but I didn't want to have to explain being tardy for Mom's big Christmas Day festivities. Baby Lisa was cute, albeit loud, while the other girls fussed and ripped into every gift in the house. Valerie and Albert ooh'd and goo'd at each other until I was nervous they were going to clear the table and consummate their love right then and there.

Valerie and I got into another little 'tiff' about the fact that I was refusing to face facts and file for divorce even though Joe had been gone for 7 months. At some point, my Dad and Grandma Mazur stopped pouring the wine and actually just started passing the bottle back and forth between them and taking slugs straight from the bottle. In the midst of all the mayhem, Mom couldn't stop talking about how there would be another baby in the house next year. I was glad she was so thrilled about Joe Jr. It was comforting to me, although I was still a tiny bit terrified about the prospect of the entire matter.

Snuggled cozy in my own bed again that night, and I slept like a rock. December 26th was a Thursday that year. At 10 am, I was jarred from sleep by a ringing telephone. I looked at Bob. "We need to remember to just disconnect all the phones when we went to bed as they have a bad habit of waking us up at ungodly hours in the morning." He seemed unconvinced and maybe a little desperate to go outside. I followed him down the stairs, not heeding the call of the telephone. I figured the caller would either leave a message or give up – at this point I didn't care which.

I heard the machine pick up: "This is Stephanie – Sorry I can't answer the telephone right now. Please leave a message and I'll call you back……beep….."

I let Bob out the back door and listened for the message, but the caller had hung up. I heard my cell phone begin to play "Wasting away Again in Margaritaville". Joe had sent me that ring tone after our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I was downstairs. My cellphone was upstairs in the bedroom. Already winded from my long trip down the stairs, I really didn't want to try to run to catch it. Maybe they'd call the house again. Maybe they'd leave a telephone number where I could call them back. I was trying to morph into a full-blown night-person and I hoped to just crawl back into bed. I took the steps slowly. I think I took a nap on the landing half-way up. By the time I made it to the bathroom I'd darn near wet my pants, but I was still okay.

Sitting on the toilet, I heard the doorbell. Oh…my…goodness. What is going on this morning? Do people have nothing better to do than to torment me this morning? I stood. I wiped. I flushed. I washed my hands. I was going to be a mother, after all. Cleanliness is important. The doorbell had rung at least three times by the time I wrapped Joe's big ugly flannel robe around me and waddled my way down the stairs again.

I was unprepared for what lay beyond my threshold. Mama Morelli and Grandma Bella stood there in all their bundled up glory. Lovely. "Good morning, Honey!" Mom Morelli sang as she squeezed my cheeks and breezed past me into the house. Grandma Bella, glared at me through the slits called her eyes and walked past me without comment. "We wanted to see if you needed anything. We were just on our way to the market." I think Mom Morelli must have just gotten a good look at me right after she said that, because then she said, "Oh, sweetheart, are you not feeling well? You aren't even dressed!"

I tried to manage a smile. I pointed it especially at Grandma Bella who still looked really angry at me for some reason. "I'm fine. Just sleeping late, that's all."

"Wasting my Joseph's money and letting his home fall apart." Grandma Bella growled in her gravely old lady voice. "Look at this place. It's a sty. You should be ashamed of yourself, young lady. I raised seven ungrateful children, had a rotten boozer of a husband, God rest his soul," at this, we all did the obligatory cross sign over ourselves, "and my home was always spotless."

At this, I looked around. The house looked pretty good to me. Dunphy and Mary Lou, well probably Mary Lou, had even dusted while I was gone.

"Now Bella, it's fine. Stephanie doesn't feel like keeping house right now. She'll clean it up after the baby comes." Mom Morelli was placating the old bag. She looked back at me, "Why don't you get dressed and come to the store with us? I still want to teach you to make manicotti and today's a perfect day to do it. We can do it here and I can tidy up your house while it bakes." Her smile was genuine. Mine wasn't.

"Well," I started, but I couldn't think of a good enough excuse fast enough. "Okay, but I need to take a shower first," I mumbled.

"That's fine, Honey. We'll just start cleaning up while you're getting ready." They started removing coats and hats, scarves and gloves. I could see them both melting in size before my very eyes. They looked half as big as they had when they came in once they got their entire winter garb off. Bella had opened the closet door to hang up their coats and I heard her talking about how dirty the closet was. I could imagine that she was going to empty the whole thing and insist on washing Joe's bowling ball before the day was over.

I emerged from the bathroom 45 minutes later, all clean and fluffy and ready for the day's adventure. I found Grandma Bella perched on the top of a step ladder trying to reach the back of the shelf in the coat closet because she said it was terribly dusty. The shelf in the coat closet is dusty? Okay, I'm not going to win this battle. And it's not even worth fighting over.

Joe's mother had stripped down to her slip to avoid getting her dress dirty in my 'filthy kitchen' and was on her knees cleaning my oven. It had to be clean or else the manicotti would not taste good, you see. It's a good thing I'd gotten a pair of rubber gloves for a gag gift at my wedding shower. She looked cute in her sturdy shoes, her matronly slip and my pink rubber gloves, I must admit.

I kept my cool. I went to the refrigerator and got myself a nice cool glass of lemonade and tried to avoid getting my feelings all in a wad over the things they were saying about my house. Finally, Mom Morelli was done with the oven and Grandma Bella came to a good stopping point when she uncovered an old photo album of my first wedding I'd stuck in the coat closet because I didn't know what else to do with it. Well, just seeing it gave her plenty of ammunition for the rest of the day.

"Grandma Bella," I said in my sweetest voice, "you seem upset with me today for some reason. What's going on?"

"I heard you took my grandson's money and went on a vacation last week. You should have been here waiting for his return; not out there doing heaven knows what. I don't think you are doing yourself any good by not keeping the house clean and taking care of things here. What if he decided to come back to you? What impression would this give for him to learn that you are letting things go like this? For goodness sake, look at your hair. You look like little Orphan Annie with all those curls. I think I'll put the eye on you. That would teach you a thing or two."

I bit my tongue. I wanted to tell her that I'd been with Joe in Seattle and yes, we'd done plenty of 'heaven knows what' while there. And Joe likes my curls. Besides, if she gave me the eye, would it hurt the baby?

Mom Morelli saved me by jumping in and saying, "Bella, stop badgering Stephanie. She's a grown woman. She can make her own decisions. Joseph is a grown man and he has chosen Stephanie to be his life's partner. It is important that we support their decision, regardless of what we think of it."

Hmmm. What does that mean, 'regardless of what they think of it?' Did she mean she didn't like that he'd chosen to go on the assignment? Or does she mean that she didn't like the fact that I was his life's partner? Well, I'll just have to think about that a bit. I believe I'll just decide my hormones are acting up again and not get my feelings hurt.

We went to the grocery store in Joe's truck. There was room for all three of us and Bob. I had heard Joe say not to ride with his mother unless I had a death wish. She's one of those little ladies that drives the big old cars and peers between the top of the steering wheel and the dashboard. I couldn't take it today. Bob wasn't letting me out of his sight and he'd cried when I'd tried to leave him at home, so he had to come, too. Grandma Bella rode in the front seat with me. Joe's Mother was in the back seat, and Bob was half and half, with his big furry head between the two front seats and his tail whapping Mom Morelli's face.

By the time we had the manicotti in the oven, I'd made three trips to the grocery store. I'd told her I had some Parmesan cheese. Who knew that you had to buy it in hunks and grate it yourself? I just used the stuff in the green can. I also didn't have the right kind of cheese grater or the correct pan to make it in. It's time consuming and a lot of work. I'm glad Joe's Mother will keep making it for him. I don't intend to do it ever again. I love Joe a lot. I'm sure he will love me whether I can make manicotti or not.

I've blossomed beyond the point of being able to walk for a long period of time on a treadmill, so I am just going to start walking around the track at the gym a few times each day. Dunphy says Joe has promised to start sending notes to me again next week after things settle down there.

Tomorrow is Christmas with the Morelli mob. Can't wait. Yippee.