Author's note: thank you very much for the reviews; to the guest who suggested me to try to change my writing style, I can't do that. I'm sorry. I don't choose the way I write, it's instinctive. Changing it would mean putting aside who I am, my personality. Then everything would become very impersonal.

Chapter Five – Accidentally Planned Life

"This house is a mess, Jane! You have three days off and this is what happens. Look around you. You made of the living-room a..."

As a matter of fact, Maura didn't even have the word to describe what she was now seeing. She could barely tell where the kitchen counter was as it had disappeared under an impressive pile of clothes and documents of all sorts. The rest of the room wasn't any better. A few glasses had been abandoned on the coffee table while some more pieces of clothing were littering the couch and the armchairs.

"You were supposed to come back tomorrow." Wrong argument and she knew it. She should have remained quiet; one more time. Jane sat further on the couch and nodded at a very angry Maura. "I'm gonna clean, it's okay. Go have a bath and I promise you that when you come back downstairs, the house'll be neat."

It was a lie. Jane would need more than twenty minutes to tidy up and clean the room and yet it was nothing compared to her bedroom.

She had been a bit lazy and so what? It happened to everyone, from time to time. As long as it remained exceptional, Maura had no reason to lose her nerves the way she was doing now.

"I don't want to have a bath! I want to have my house back. You know, the clean one." Yet too tired to keep on arguing, Maura let herself fall on the couch and sighed. "You didn't go out? You spent three days locked inside doing nothing but ordering pizza and watching television."

"I did not!" Jane pretended to be offended. She knew that it always worked out and that – at some point – her drama side made Maura smile. "Someone has to walk out Jo Friday."

Maura rolled her eyes but didn't insist. She grabbed a few documents that Jane had left on the coffee table and skimmed through them. She perfectly knew what they were about.

As a matter of fact, these were the reason why she hadn't slept for days now. Her nervousness had reached a degree that worried her a lot. Her heart would never be able to handle the dose of stress.

"You read them?"

Jane welcomed her friend's lower – calmer – tone of voice with a timid smile. Of course she had read them. She even knew them by heart. She had made a list of pros and contras for each one of them. Her meticulousness would ever impress Maura or scare her to death.

"C'mon. I know you did the same. A seven-hour flight... Don't tell me you spent it watching movies and catching back on your sleep."

Maura didn't say anything. What for anyway? Jane was right. She had spent most of her time reading the description of the different adoption agencies that they had selected prior to her business trip. They had their first meeting with one of them within the next two days. The second part of their plan had never seemed so close.

Time had literally flown by. They had elaborated a very simple yet detailed scheme for their pact: first Jane moved in – then they got married – and a month later, they started the adoption process. They both knew that it could take a while before the whole thing to become concrete so they didn't want to lose time and wait. It was what they wanted anyway. Why wasting time when they could meet a social worker now?

"What if our file is denied?" Maura didn't mean to sound negative but such possibility haunted her mind. "Everything has been working so well until now. What if things change? What if it doesn't work out the way we had it planned? We can't be sure that our file is going to be accepted. As a matter of fact, there is nothing less sure... You have a risky job and mine is... Look at our schedules! It isn't appropriate! What kind of child would be happy with us?"

Jane swallowed hard. In shock. It was the first time that one of them dared to make such remark, to raise such possibility. Until now, it all had been about smiles and talks of a perfect tomorrow as if life were easy and the road not so bumpy. They had tried to fool themselves and their inner anxieties but it hadn't worked out.

What would happen if they were denied the chance to become parents?

"It's gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay, Maura. We lead more or less balanced lives and we have good jobs. Yes, mine's kinda risky yours is weird but there are plenty of cops who have kids. They have no reason to turn down our file. Absolutely no reason."

Jane bit her lower lip. She wished she had sounded more convincing. She understood Maura's insecurities because she had the exact same ones. It was probably normal. They had chosen adoption because it seemed to fit better, to match their lives and their chances to actually have a child.

Maura was forty and she was forty-one years old. Artificial insemination was an option but the statistics didn't go in their favor and they didn't want to live any kind of disappointment.

Failure was not part of their plan.

"You are right. Yes... You are right." Speaking to nobody but herself, Maura nodded and stood up. She repeated the words over and over like a mantra. "I might actually be in the mood for a bath so if you need me, I will be upstairs. Please feel free to use this spare time to clean your mess."

Jane's snort got interrupted by a loud noise followed by a scream and then another loud noise. She turned around and bent over the couch only to find Maura lying on the floor, on her back.

"You 'kay...?"

The question was nothing but pure rhetoric. As a matter of fact, Jane wasn't even sure that she had done well to ask. Because she knew what had happened. And why. The glare Maura shot her swept away her last ounce of doubt.

"How many times will I have to repeat it, Jane? No. Skateboard. Inside. The. House."

Mumbling apologies, Jane helped Maura to stand up. Thankfully, she didn't seem to be hurt. Only angry, very angry. The skateboard she had accidentally walked over had come to crash silently against the fireplace on the other side of the living-room.

"Go, go have your bath. Something tells me it's really time for me to clean and tidy up the house..."

Jane watched how Maura walked towards the stairs. She had her fists clenched and seemed to murmur words that Jane preferred to not overhear. This was not the best 'welcome back home' party she could throw in for the person she had accepted to marry.

...

A black eye. Because of your infamous messy mother, I got a black eye. For our first meeting with an adoption agency, this moment we had been waiting for for so long.

The social worker didn't make any remark but she must have wondered why I kept my sunglasses on in her office during all that time.

Oh yes, you can laugh. Or shrug. Yes, do that. Shrug. Because this kind of situation isn't foreign to what you have been living for the past eighteen years with us. I know that you only joke when you say it but I agree with you: Jane and I are crazy. In our own way.

The only thing I hope is that we never embarrassed you. I mean no more than what was intended, of course. You are brave to not lose your temper – to not throw a fit at us – when you would have all the reasons in the world to do it.

Needless to say that we didn't go any further with the first adoption agency. What kind of professionals would open a file for adoption to a woman who refuses to take her sunglasses off on a rainy day of February?

The situation was suspicious.

Jane was mortified. She knew that it was her fault and she didn't stop apologizing. She even cooked me quinoa and accepted to renounce to beer for a week. Did she learn her lesson? Not really. Sadly I am afraid that being messy is in her genes. She can't help it... But she makes an effort, once in a while, when she wants to see me genuinely smile.

We had a very clinical approach to the adoption process. We had made lists and established very precised criteria. So it didn't turn out to be complicated to find the right one.

There was always apprehension over the first appointment because we were so afraid to make a bad impression but I want to say that every single social worker we met was nice and attentive. It went rather smoothly.

We simply chose the one that matched our desires the most, the one where we felt at ease and understood. It is a small agency – human size – with a great spirit. You know it as we go there each year to celebrate its anniversary.

Sometimes people ask me whether I regret to not have given birth to anyone. They don't question your adoption, their wonders lie deeper. Maybe it even crossed your mind but you never dared to let us know. Well... It might be time for me to answer to you, then.

No. I don't regret anything. Adoption was made for us and if we had to go back in time then I can assure you that we would do it all over again without changing the slightest thing.

I like the notion of tolerance that comes within the adoption process; the way it emphasizes the real notion of family and love. I was adopted myself, you know that. This is something I have never hidden from you. On the contrary. I immediately felt like sharing it with you. I think this peculiarity links us in some way. In a beautiful way...

So, yes. I don't know what it feels like to give birth, I don't know what it feels like to feel the baby kick inside of you. I don't know what it feels like to have this mysterious connection during the nine months that the pregnancy lasts but I know what it is like to be a mother. I know what it is to love your child the second you hold him or her in your arms. I know about the incredible strength you suddenly seem to have.

This sentiment of serenity that wrapped me up the day you were born... It is still here. It has never left me.