Who Says You Can't Go Home?

It was a sunny mid morning on October fifth. A nurse was buckling a six week old baby—who because of prematurity looked about a day old—into his car seat while his doctor was explaining his delayed development to his mother.

"The corrected age is the age he would be if he had been born full term. His chronological age is his actual age. For instance, he was born six weeks ago, so his chronological age is six weeks old, but he was supposed to be born yesterday, so his corrected age is one day old. It's important for parents of preemies to remember how this works," the doctor said, "because as they get older you'll be expecting them to be doing things that other children their age do, but you'll need to take the corrected age into consideration until he's at least twenty months old. Take, for example, a full term baby will start sitting up and crawling at six months of age, but when Joseph is six months old his corrected age will only be four and a half months."

"So I should only be worried if he's not doing what other four month olds are doing?"

"Right," he answered with an unusual amount of enthusiasm.

Jess laughed because she knew it was because most parents don't understand that at first. Lucky for him she had read all about premature babies, and knew all of that before hand.

"Got it," the nurse said. "You're ready to roll. Bye-bye Joseph."

XXXX

When Jess got to her apartment her son's newly hired nanny was there to greet them. After going through agency after agency Jess finally settled on a twenty-four year old woman with auburn hair and a Russian accent. She originally wanted a live-in caregiver, but she liked Teresa right away, so she chose her even if it did mean adjusting her schedule so she left no earlier than seven-thirty every morning and returned no later than eight every evening.

"Is this Joseph?" Teresa asked.

"This is him." Jess gave her the carrier, and Teresa took the baby to the bedroom.

Jess sat on her sofa and resumed the worrying she was doing about how and when she would tell her family about the baby.

XXXX

A month later, one morning Nicole returned to the office after she had been out to visit the family of a woman who her and Jess had rescued. Her first stop would be—as it usually was—Antonio's desk. Even though they had been living together for two months, and worked together full time, they still could never get sick of each others company.

"Hi there," she said.

"You're back early."

"Antonio, don't start."

Ever since his near death experience Antonio had been obsessed with safety. Oddly enough it wasn't his safety he was worried about. Ever since he moved in with Nicole, and was able to see how soon she could return from the grocery store or—when she called from the office, and told him she was on her way out—how quickly she got to Maryland he had been on a plight to get Nicole to slow down.

"It takes at least two hours to get to the Boyd's home and back, and you've been gone for just that, so either you spent two seconds at the home or you were speeding again."

Nicole had been as patient as she could with his new fears, but as the end of the year was approaching she was at the end of her rope.

"I was rushing back to see you."

Her cutting remark only irritated him further. "You promised me you would slow down."

"And I did. If I drove the way I wanted to I would have gotten here half an hour ago."

Antonio disregarded her explanation, and looked back down at what he was doing.

Nicole read the sadness and anxiety in his face. She sat on the edge of his desk. "Talk to me, Antonio."

"What's to talk about? You know why I'm mad. I've told you a million times. You obviously don't care, so I don't see why-"

"Hold up. What do you mean I don't care? Just because I don't do every little thing you ask me to doesn't mean I don't care."

"All I ask you to do is one thing."

"You know that's not true. You know it's not just one thing."

"So I'm a little more demanding."

"A lot more demanding, Antonio. A lot. I've been patient, but enough is enough. This has to stop. Yes, you were almost killed. But you weren't. You weren't even hurt. You lived, so start acting like it."

Nicole put her hand on his shoulder, and kissed the top of his head. "I love you," she told him then she left him to contemplate what she'd said.

XXXX

After leaving Antonio Nicole went to find Jess, so she could sign a document for her records.

"Sign this." She put the paper in front of her, and Jess didn't even notice her presence.

Nicole waved her hand in front of Jess's face, "hello."

"Huh? Oh," she grabbed a pen, and signed the page.

"You're still thinking about going home with the baby."

"Yeah. I don't how I'm supposed to get through this."

"Let me tell you a story. When I graduated Quantico I was so looking forward to having a steady, respectable career. But as my first day was approaching I was absolutely scared out of my mind. Because I was thinking about all the terrible things that could go wrong. You won't believe the crazy things that crossed my mind. But after my first day was over I came home, and I just laughed and laughed. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because none of the horrible things I anticipated happened, and I realized how ridiculous all the thoughts I entertained were. My point is that sometimes things turn out much better than we expect."

"And sometimes they turn out a lot worse."

"Now we're getting into a glass half empty, half full thing. If you want to drive yourself nuts about this I can't stop you. But I want you to think about this, your family loves you, and even if they do get upset it's only because of that. Remember that."

Again Nicole left another friend to ponder her words of wisdom.

XXXX

At the end of that day Jess went home to pick up her son, and then headed for the airport. She had the whole flight to her home town to think about what her partner said. Through Joseph's crying, and the young boy behind her kicking the seat it was hard to look on the bright side, but she tried anyway. Maybe Nicole was right, she thought, maybe they won't be as upset as I think they will.

Jess parked her car in the parking lot of one of her family's restaurants. Joseph had only stopped crying, and fallen asleep minutes before. Finally everything was quiet, and she had a chance to think about how she would go about it all.

Before she left her apartment she called her cousin Sabrina and her brother Douglas, and asked them to meet her at the restaurant. She wanted to talk to them before she faced the rest of her family. They didn't know they were about to meet their new baby cousin/nephew.

Sabrina was only one of Jess's many cousins, and even though she was two years older than Jess they were very close growing up. Unlike most of the rest of her family Sabrina grew up near by Jess's home, so they spent a lot of time together. That was until Jess moved to D.C. That day would be the first time Jess would see Sabrina in four years.

Jess carried Joseph's carrier/carseat into the restaurant. Before anyone saw her she slipped into the storage room. She flipped over an empty crate, and set the baby carrier on it, and then she left for a moment to find Sabrina and Douglas.

Douglas was in the kitchen directing the chefs, and Sabrina was in the dining room waiting in one of the booths.

Jess went in the kitchen, and grabbed her brother, and then went to the dining room, and got Sabrina. She didn't say anything to either of them, and just when they got to the storage room Sabrina spoke up.

"What is going on?"

"Shhh," Jess said. They walked into the room, and after she closed the door behind them she only pointed to the carrier.

"Aw," Sabrina said. She walked closer to the infant whose attention she had just been drawn to.

"Oh man," Douglas laughed. It was only normal sibling rivalry for him to find it amusing that his perfect little sister had done something not so perfect.

Sabrina touched his hand. "He's so tiny. Oh, Jess, he is beautiful. How old is he?"

"Eleven weeks."

"Really? He's so small."

"He was premature."

"What?" Suddenly Douglas wasn't smiling anymore. "He was sick? You went through that alone?"

"I guess. Don't wake him up. He just got to sleep, and I don't think I can stand it if he starts crying again. I already have a migraine thinking about what everyone is going to say when I tell them about him."

"Yeah," Sabrina said, "that's gonna be bad."

"They are going to be mad."

"Thank you both. I feel so much better now." In a way Jess's statement wasn't all sarcasm. Part of her did feel better knowing that she hadn't underestimated her family. That mild relief passed soon, and was quickly replaced with more anxiety.

"Well if I was you," Sabrina said, "I would get it over with as soon as possible. The family is at the house. You should just go over there and tell them. Doug will go with you, and I'll stay here with the baby."

"Shouldn't he be with me when I tell them?"

"Well….you said you didn't want to wake him, and what's gonna happen when you tell them will definitely wake him."

"I'm not laughing, Sabrina."

"Okay, okay. But I do think you should ease into it. You can't just walk into the house with a baby, and say hello, how have you been. Who's this? This is my son."

"Yeah. You're right. Stay here, both of you. I'll call after I tell them."

XXXX

Jess opened the door, and walked into the home she grew up in, and hadn't been in in the longest time. It was quiet. Where is everybody? she thought. She was partly relieved until she heard talking in the kitchen. Of course, every Italian's favorite place in the house.

As she walked to the swinging door she listened carefully to try to make out the voices to know ahead of time who exactly she would be giving the news to. All she heard were women's voices. She figured all the men were where they usually were on the day before Thanksgiving—out playing golf—a tradition they came up with in the eighties. She heard her aunts (her father's sisters) and her grandmother on her dad's side—a woman who she referred to as Grandma Dorothy. That was the title her parents gave her and Douglas to call her to avoid confusion between her dad's mom and her mom's mom. But it turned out to be futile because Toni cut her mom out of her life shortly after her daughter was born.

As soon as she went into the kitchen she was instantly bombarded by her aunts.

"Hello, Jess, how is everything," Dorothy talked over her sisters and daughters who were fawning over her granddaughter.

"It's been better. There's something I need to tell you guys."

"Is there something wrong?" her aunt Jennifer (Sabrina's mom) asked.

"I think that's up to you."

They all adjourned to the family room. Jess' two aunts and grandmother took the couch, and her other aunts took the love seat. Jess stood in the midst of them.

"Where's mom?" Jess asked.

"She went to the restaurant."

"Which one?"

"The one on Halstead."

"Aw, crap," she said under her breath so she wouldn't offend any of her victorian aunts.

"Jess," Dorothy said, "what is going on?"

Before she could say anything she heard the front door open and close. She was hoping it wasn't her mom, but she was wrong. Toni strolled into the family room.

"You're here just in time," Dorothy said. "Jess has something important to tell us."

"I'll bet," Toni replied.

Jess had a whole speech prepared, but as she stood with half her family—and the half whose opinion she valued the most—looking on she forgot most of it, and the part she remembered she didn't even want to say. She just wanted to get it over with, so that's what she did.

"I had a baby," she spoke straightforwardly.

A smile crept upon the faces of everyone except her mom. Some of them chuckled, some of them laughed, none of them thought she was serious. They all thought she was kidding, perhaps it was an icebreaker to prepare them for the real news.

Dorothy was the first to notice Jess wasn't laughing with them. "You're not joking."

"No she's not," Toni answered.

XXXX

Antonio was enjoying his days off reclining in his chair, and reading the paper while his girlfriend was anxiously wearing herself out cleaning their home.

She wanted it to look perfect. The next day was going to be more than just a day of remembrance of the pilgrims. It was going to be the first holiday she would spend with her mother in the better part of twenty years.

"You know," she said to him, "you could at least pretend to want to help me."

"Help you with what? You've cleaned the counters perfectly, you've mopped the floors five times since Monday, you washed that dish this morning. This house is spotless." He folded his paper, set it on the coffee table, and came over to her. "Stop worrying. You and me and your mom will have a great Thanksgiving together." He hugged her the way he always did to make her feel better, and—like always—it worked.

"You're right. This will be great."

"There you go."

XXXX

Right after the nightmarish experience of telling her family about Joseph Jess called Sabrina and Douglas, and told them they could bring the baby home. After that she went out to the backyard—the only place she could find quiet—and sat in a bench swing. Soon Sabrina came out to join her.

"How'd it go?"

"At first as bad as I could imagine—and then some. But they calmed down a little. Their still upset that I'm not marrying Colin, but I think they'll get over that…in time."

"I think it will be sooner than that."

"What do you mean?"

"They are all in there falling all over themselves trying to hold him, and they love that you named him after uncle Joe…..Hey did I tell you Nathan is coming here?"

"He is?" When she said that she looked brighter than she had in months.

"Yeah. He quit his radio thing in California, and he's coming home. He called, and when I told him you'd be here he said he'd stop by."

Nathan Tobias Massey was Jess's best friend growing up. Their dad's met when the kids were seven, and every since then the families were extremely close. They would go on vacations together, and they spent a lot of time at each others homes. But Nathan and Jess were closer than their families ever were. They attended the same private schools, and had the same friends. They were inseparable. Nathan's and Jess's moms thought they would get married. Even as kids they were "boyfriend, girlfriend", but they grew out of that, and as they reached adolescence they were just friends.

But they grew up. Nathan attended a different college, and after graduating he moved to California. He made a name for himself by becoming a popular radio personality. Jess moved to D.C., and the two of them hadn't even spoken in years. Their families stopped being as close as they were when Joe died. It seemed he and Nathan's father—and Nathan and Jess's friendship—is what kept the families together. Once all that was gone they drifted apart.

XXXX

Later that afternoon when everything had quieted down—including Joseph who was napping in his aunt's arms—Toni finally got a chance to talk to her daughter alone. She went up to her old room where Jess was relaxing after a day of turmoil.

"I thought you'd be up here." Toni sat beside her daughter.

"Before you say anything I just want to say that I'm sorry I didn't tell you about him sooner. I just didn't want to add on any more stress."

"That's what bothers me the most. Why did you think telling your family..your mother..that you were in trouble would be stressful? When have I ever been intolerant of your mistakes?"

"Never. I know I should have told you."

"It couldn't have been easy dealing with a sick baby alone."

"It wasn't."

There was nothing more to say on that. Toni hugged her daughter—her way of letting her know everything was all right.

"So how is motherhood treating you?"

"It's okay."

"Just okay?"

"I love him so much. I'm sure things will get easier."

"They will…I can't believe my baby is a mommy."

XXXX

That night after dinner, after Joseph had fallen asleep, and Jess had put him down in a playpen in her old room. She heard the doorbell as she was coming down the stairs.

"I'll get it," she called out to her family in the other room.

She opened the door, and there he was. She screamed in excitement. He picked her up in a hug, and the two of them did a twirl in the embrace.

"You look great," she said.

"You look better."

"What have you been doing with yourself? I heard something happened with your talk radio thing?"

"Nothing happened really. I just got tired of it. I'm looking to do other things. How 'bout you? Anything new?"

The only reaction Jess could give to that was nervous laughter. "Yeah. A lot. But let's go inside. I'm not really in the mood to broadcast this to the neighbors."

After Jess's family greeted Nathan she brought him up to her room.

"Okay," he said as he closed the door behind them, "what's up?"

Jess held her hand out bringing his attention to the playpen in the corner of the room.

"Is that what I think it is?" He peaked in the playpen. "Yep. That's what I thought."

He sat down, and so did she, and for a half an hour she regaled him with stories about Colin and Joseph's early arrival into the world. She conveniently left out the fact that Colin might not be the child's father.

"Man," he sighed, "so that jerk just left his pregnant girlfriend just for some stupid undercover job?"

"No, no, no, no. It wasn't like that. Colin never knew about Joe. We parted on good terms."

"Still he did just leave."

"I guess so."

"So…are you having a hard time with this?"

"This is the first time I've said it, but…yeah. He's not that hard a baby to take care of. He doesn't cry that much, and when he does it's usually easy to sooth him, but when I look at him, and I think about raising him alone it scares me...a lot."

Nathan listened carefully the way he always did. Even when they were children he was always good at listening, and offering advice to solve problems.

"All my friends in D.C.," she went on, "said that when my family sees how well I do managing raising a baby and doing my job they would get over the fact that I'm by myself and not married. But now I'm thinking that maybe my family is right. Maybe I can't do this alone."

"You shouldn't have to."

"I know." She pulled out another tissue from a Kleenex box, and wiped her face that was stained with the tears she had held back for too long. "I don't know where this is coming from."

"You have a right…..You know what you need? Time away from being mama. Let's get out of here…No. Give me time to make plans."

"What plans?"

"It's a surprise. Tomorrow night I am gonna take you out."

"Tomorrow is Thanksgiving."

"So? This family eats at three in the afternoon anyway. I'll pick you up at seven."

What he did next caught her off guard. He leaned in and kissed her. She wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. Their relationship had never been more than friends—since they were ten anyway, but that was definitely not the way you kiss a friend.

Before he left the room he stopped to look in the playpen. He watched Joseph for a while, and then he went.

Jess didn't give his actions anymore thought the rest of the night. She would have if she hadn't been so busy pacifying an infant who (she guessed) was upset about his unfamiliar surroundings, and probably missing Teresa.

XXXX

Nicole woke up at the crack of dawn that Thanksgiving morning. She continued her endless, completely unnecessary cleaning of her home—that she resumed the day before, and had been forcing Antonio to participate in—while her boyfriend slept in—typical man.

Finally—as noon was approaching—Antonio came down the stairs still in his pajamas.

"It's about time," she said.

"You're not gonna ask me to do anything are you?"

"Yes. Get dressed. My mom will be here in an hour."

Antonio went back up the stairs to change. While he was up there he took time to call his family in Cuba, his sister, and his younger brother. His family wanted him, his sister, and his brother to come home, but it was Mariela's husband's family's turn to have them and her kids for the holidays. Antonio opted to spend that year's holidays with Nicole. She needed him more than his family did. Elias was the only one of the three that didn't have arrangements.

"You should have gone home," he scolded Elias.

"C'mon, Antonio, you know I don't care about this tradition crap."

"Thanksgiving is not a Cuban tradition. The family just wanted to see us. Mariela had other obligations, and so did I, but you could have flown home."

"Are you done?"

"Yeah." Antonio gave up on trying to make his brother see the error of his ways. "I'll talk to you soon. Bye."

"Bye."

Antonio always had an interesting relationship with his baby brother. He was ten when Elias was born. While his older sister Mariela took on the roll of a second mother, he reacted like any little boy. He didn't pay much attention the baby his parents brought home.

Things changed when the boys got older. Antonio matured, and Elias idolized him. When Antonio got his driver's license his six year old brother was his first passenger. As odd as it seemed to him—and the rest of his family—Elias was his best friend. But all that changed as soon as Elias went to college. Suddenly he wasn't interested in being like Antonio—an achiever, driven towards success. He dropped out, moved out of state, and started living a life style that was anything but what his parents raised him to be. That was when Antonio's role in Elias's life changed from friend to worried father figure. His own father had given up on him, so did his mother and his older sister, but Antonio never did. He never would.

Antonio came back down the stairs dressed in a light blue shirt and Nicole's favorite tie on him. She barely glanced up from taking the turkey out of the oven as he entered the kitchen, but she instantly read his badly hidden look of disappointment.

"You called Elias," she knew.

"How do you do that?"

"The same way you know when I'm thinking about my dad or the foster homes or—before we fixed things—my mom. You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay. See that's the difference between us. You say you don't want to talk about something, and I let it go. You would push me to tell you. I'm just saying."

"I'll remember that."

"Good. Hand me the turkey baster."

XXXX

That evening Jess got Joseph to sleep, and prepared for her evening with Nathan. Before she could go though she had to give her nervous sitters instructions to care for her son. They wouldn't have been nervous if the rest of the family hadn't gone out as well. There would have been at least five women (all of which had experience with babies) to help them.

"He'll probably sleep until I get back, but if he starts crying you can give him the bottle in the warmer. If that doesn't work you can try rocking him in that chair in the den."

"And if that doesn't work?" Douglas asked.

Jess heard Nathan's car pull up.

"Then you'll be screwed." She left before him and Sabrina could change their minds.

XXXX

After dinner Carla and Antonio moved to the living room.

Carla reached into her purse. "Look what I found," she said to Antonio. "Baby pictures of Nicole."

"Oh great," Antonio laughed.

Nicole was not amused. "I better be fully clothed in all those pictures."

XXXX

Nathan and Jess were just finishing their dinner.

"Have some more wine," he offered.

"I think I've had enough."

"Oh come on. Live a little." He took the glass, and poured the dark liquid into it. "Hey, what's that?" He pointed in a direction that required Jess to turn around to look.

While her back was turned he pulled out a diamond ring from his suit pocket, and dropped it in the glass.

"What?" she said.

"Never mind. Here," he gave her the glass.

"What was it?"

"Nothing. Drink."

"Are you trying to get me drunk, Nathan Massey?"

"You'll see."

It took longer than he anticipated, but eventually she finished the wine, and saw the rock on the bottom of the glass.

"What's this?"

"This," he took the glass from her hand, and pulled out the ring, "I hope is the beginning of our life together. Give me your hand."

She did.

"Jess, I love you. I've loved you since we were kids. I don't know why we didn't do this years ago, but we should have. We should have been together all along. I want to be with you. I want to be a father to Joe…"

She drifted in and out as he went on. Part of her was thinking he was making a mistake, and another part of her—a bigger part of her—believed he was right. Maybe they should have been together…that was certainly the consensus of their parents. A big part of her wanted more than anything to not be alone raising a kid. Her feelings of doubt overshadowed her feelings of hope for a future with a good man who she knew would love her and—more importantly—would love Joseph.

"…..Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

XXXX

"I better be going," Carla said.

"Already? It's still early," Antonio was enjoying hearing her stories about Nicole, and seeing the pictures.

"I know, but I have to be at the hospital at five tomorrow. I'm covering for a friend who went to be with family in Maine."

"Okay," Antonio conceded. "Come back soon."

"I will."

Nicole and Antonio walked Carla to the door. She kissed him and her daughter goodbye.

"See," Antonio closed the door behind Carla, "I told you this would go great."

"I could have lived without those pictures, but you're right it was wonderful."

The couple walked hand in hand to the dining room.

"I guess we better get these dishes in the dish washer," Antonio said.

"Isn't there a game on?"

"Don't rub it in."

Nicole took the dish out of his hand. "I'm in a good mood. Go. Watch the game."

He kissed her, and went on his way.

XXXX

Jess and Nathan walked into her Indiana home after a fantastic evening out. Joseph's cries were heard from outside, so Jess went straight upstairs to tend to him. Nathan went into the family room, and was startled to find Sabrina and Douglas sprawled on the sofa, spit up rags and baby clothes all over them and the floor.

"Yikes," Nathan said, "what happened here?"

"What happened here," Sabrina said, "was that me and Doug learned that we are completely incapable of taking care of an infant."

Douglas started to pick up the rags off the floor. "He started crying right after you and Jess left, and never stopped."

The crying ceased.

"Finally," Douglas said.

Jess came in the family room with a quiet baby in her arms. She stood beside Nathan. He wrapped his arm around her and rested his other hand on Joseph's light brown haired head.

"Why do you two look so happy?" Sabrina said with a hint of resentment.

"We have some news," Nathan said.

"We're getting married!" Jess finished.

After the rest of Jess's family came home Nathan called his parents. The couple delivered the news to everyone at the same time. To describe the families' reaction to the news as thrilled would be the understatement of the century.

XXXX

The next morning Jess was packing to go back to D.C.

"I have some things to take care of, but I'll be back here in a few weeks," Nathan told her while he was rocking the baby.

"What things?"

"Just things. Nothing big."

"Okay. I'll be back in a few weeks too. I don't want to sit around, and stress over the wedding, so I will be working until everything is planned out."

Jess's mom, Nathan's mom, and all their aunts and grandmothers wanted to plan the wedding. And Jess was completely fine with that. The last thing she needed was the anxiety of planning a wedding. She would go back to work for a month. The wedding was going to be in early to mid December—not the ideal month for matrimony, but everyone wanted to get it done as soon as possible. Joseph would be staying in Indiana with his aunt until his mother returned—giving his nanny a huge break for the holidays.

"All right, Joe," Nathan kissed his head, and set him down, "I have to go away for a while, but I will be back soon. I love you, Buddy."

"And I love you too," he said to his fiancé. He kissed her goodbye, and after saying goodbye to his family and his soon-to-be family (which always felt like family to him anyway) he rushed to catch his plane.