Full disclaimers on Chapter 1.
Stop NOW if DRAMA/TRAGEDY is NOT something you are interested into reading, or if it is a bad trigger for you.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.
I am not a native English speaker, and I don't have a beta. So all mistakes are 100% mine.
Enough of disclaimers and warnings – read at your own risk. Reviews are always welcome!
Chapter 89
Constance woke up a few hours later, relaxed. Maura's house was quiet without the Rizzoli's ins and outs, and Constance had to admit even she was missing it from her last visit. A lot of Maura's life enthusiasm and happiness had been fed by that family that adopted her adoptive daughter.
She walked downstairs, not surprised to find Maura in her office.
"Are you working?" Constance asked, rapping the door.
"I just finished, mother, come on in. I was preparing Jane's eulogy for the service tomorrow."
Constance could see her daughter's eyes puffy by the amount of crying she had done in the process, added to all the crying she certainly had been doing since the previous day.
"I was under the impression you didn't enjoy public speaking."
"I don't." Maura gave her a half-smile. "But I will. Jane deserves that much."
Constance was proud to see the determination in Maura's voice. She had to recognize how much Maura changed, blossomed, opened up to the world around her, since she had met Jane. Jane's loss would weigh heavily on Maura.
"You ate so little during lunch… Do you want to pick the place we go for dinner? Would you rather go to that place where I met you once, that is a more relaxed environment?"
And for the first time since she arrived, Constance saw panic in Maura's eyes.
"The Dirty Robber?" Maura gasped in a high-pitched voice.
"That was the funny name of it, yes."
Constance noticed the heavy breathing and approached the desk, happy that Maura was seating.
"Maura? Maura? Whatever it is, it is okay…"
Constance saw a mug with tea close by, and pushed it into Maura's hands, noticing how cold they were, hoping that drinking something Maura would recoup a bit of color in her face.
Maura sipped, closing her eyes.
"I am so sorry, mother… I think it… it will be a while before I can… set foot on the Dirty Robber… without… without Jane." Maura was stuttering, and she swallowed hard, trying to regain some semblance of self-control. "It was the place I first went out with her for anything outside of work. It's just…" she added in a small voice, trailing off.
"I am the one to apologize, Maura." Constance finally realized she was stepping into shifting sands. Maura was way more fragile than her controlled behavior showed. Constance wondered if she was even equipped to handle Maura like that. And Constance sighed, thinking that in any other situation, if she saw Maura like that, she would have simply called Jane and asked for her help, knowing Jane would somehow fix the situation.
"Why don't you choose a restaurant you might have seen reviews or had recommendations on?" Maura tried to offer, knowing she had let her controlled façade slip for a moment.
Constance pulled a chair to sit by her daughter, taking her hands in hers, and noticing Maura was still trembling.
"No, Maura. Thinking better of it, we should not go out tonight. Why don't we go to your kitchen, and see what light dinner we can whip out here?"
"But mother, you are only in town for a couple of days…"
"I didn't come for the nightlife, Maura. I stopped in Boston to see you. And we probably can talk more calmly and quietly here, don't you think?"
Maura nodded, grateful.
"Let's see what we can make, then." She stood.
Constance eyed the pile of envelopes neatly stacked on the table, and saw her name on one of them.
"May I ask what are those?" she inquired, gently, looking at Maura.
Maura swallowed before replying, picking the envelope with Constance's name and handing it to her, and sighing before explaining.
"Jane read this book during her treatment. It was about a guy diagnosed with brain cancer, and he had a few months to live. He used that time to show the people in his life how grateful he was for them. It gave her an idea of writing messages to people. She filled several notebooks with those messages. This morning, before you arrived, I was going through the notebooks, separating the messages so I can hand them to the appropriate people…"
"But a message to me? What would she write to me?"
"I have not the slightest idea, mother. I didn't read the messages. I just took note of the person name on the top of the page, flipped through pages until finding a blank one, and then proceeded to tore the pages, and put them in the envelopes. These messages don't belong to me…"
"But did you get one too?" Constance asked, curious.
"I did." And Maura grinned for the first time since Constance had arrived.
Constance picked the envelope with her name in it.
"Why don't you use the privacy of my office to read it, while I prepare something for us to eat?"
"I will join you shortly." Constance thanked her. She felt touched Jane would leave a message to her.
Maura walked out of the office, and Constance opened the envelope.
She noticed the pages were handwritten, from a regular notebook, and that the handwriting was far from her daughter's neat one. But then Constance recalled Jane pronounced hand scars, and how Maura brushed the subject when Constance asked about Jane's scars in the past about the damage to Jane's nerves.
"Constance,
I know we never talked in detail after your accident because of all the mess around Paddy Doyle's shooting. And we likely never will, now.
But I can't stop thinking that although you might not have known the full story behind Maura's biological parents, you had to know that man handing you a newborn had some shady business to get away from if he told you his father would have killed the baby otherwise.
Don't get me wrong. I am not here to judge you.
The more I thought about what you told me from that hospital bed, the more I feel I admire you.
You were a successful professor. In a prestigious university. And someone who was not even one of your students shows up with a newborn that is clearly in trouble and whose life is at risk – what means that might put your life at risk as well.
And you, that clearly was not likely even thinking about adopting a baby, found yourself adopting one."
Constance had to stop. Jesus Christ. Jane was good. Constance understood now what Maura meant about her being absolutely the best detective she had met. It was not starry-eyed Maura talking about her best friend. Jane had put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Constance had never ever considered having a baby or adopting a baby. It was not compatible with the lifestyle she and her husband loved. She was a professor and an artist, he was a professor and an explorer. He spent most of his time travelling. And she enjoyed the freedom of a flamboyant life her family wealth granted her.
She had incentivized that talented young man that, at first, she thought was a student in her art class in Harvard, and that soon told her he only showed up to see another student from the science department, and needed an excuse. He told her Constance had been the only person who was polite with him, and he kept coming back. He was really smart, and she suspected there was more behind his story than he was letting show.
But when she had seen the newborn baby in his arms after he had disappeared for months, the big beautiful hazel eyes that seemed to drink the world around her with avid curiosity, and when he explained the mother had died in childbirth and his family would kill the baby otherwise, and that he trusted nobody but her, she knew then this would be her daughter.
She went back to Jane's message.
"It made me understand, then, why you maybe felt you were never any good at being a mother, as you told me when I confronted you the first time we met about what your behavior signaled Maura.
It was because you never had even considered being a mother.
Don't get me wrong – I don't regret confronting you. Maura was hurting and no matter the history, there was a way to change it moving forward, and you did change it, I give you that, and I am very grateful you did.
But I gained a new appreciation for you as well.
I always felt thankful for Maura having been adopted by a family that could have fostered her geniality, her innate gifts. I cannot even imagine Maura having grown up in a foster home, or on the streets, or with a poor family that could never have allowed her genius mind to flourish. I always consoled myself that, even if she didn't have the crazy loud physical love my family impaired on me, she had at least a respectful and solid environment that allowed her to fully develop her beautiful mind.
But when I realized the conditions of her adoption, I feel even more thankful to you. You adopting her saved her life, Constance. And you probably put yourself at risk, because if Paddy's dad had suspected your adoptive baby was Paddy's, he could have killed you and the baby.
So, I wanted to tell you that now I understand better how difficult it was for you to be a mother. Maura was not some kind of planned project that you prepared or got ready for. She happened to you. And you did the best you knew how to do then. And likely had to learn along the way. And without asking a lot, because if you asked you would need to tell how that little being came to be in your life without any planning, and you couldn't do that.
Thank you for having fallen in love with that little baby.
Thank you for adopting her even if being a mother was never on your plans.
Thank you for saving her life and risking yours in the process, and for protecting her.
Thank you for trying your best to be a mother to her.
Thank you for giving the conditions for her to flourish.
Thank you for hearing my confrontation, and despite the hurt I obviously caused you, turning around what is to be the rest of your life with Maura.
Thank you for saving Maura's life in the night of that hit and run.
And thank you for having raised the most wonderful person I have ever met.
She is the most kind, and generous, and loving person I know. I will never be able to thank her for all she has done for me and for my family in the twelve years since we met. I will never be able to thank her enough for putting her life on pause for twenty months to take care of me. But I want you to know I am forever in debt and grateful for having her in my life – I only survived this long thanks to your daughter.
Please, take good care of Maura while I am not here. And please don't let her shrink back into herself. She is the most precious being in this whole world, and her light must keep shining.
Until we meet again,
Jane."