Chapter Six
The expectant pause at the end of the phone line was daunting, causing Maura's throat to constrict around her words, making her voice sound weaker than she would have liked. "I – this is Maura Isles," she said, inwardly cringing at the formality of her introduction.
Continued silence, and Maura thought the line had gone dead, until she heard a slight intake of breath and a slow repition of her name. "Maura. Constance said you might call." Another pause. "I'd hoped you would."
The admission didn't set her at ease, but instead prompted her heart to beat faster. "I hope I'm not disturbing you." How was this supposed to work, exactly? She had no idea what the protocol for speaking with one's biological mother was supposed to be, and she wished she'd at least done a cursory google search. The queen of scientific input, and she hadn't elicited any instruction whatsoever.
"No, no, of course not," Hope said. "I wasn't sure if you would use my number or not. Or if Constance would even pass it along to you. Tell me, doctor to doctor, how is she doing?"
Maura slipped easily into role, thankful for some direction on where to lead the conversation. "She had some swelling in the temporal lobe, which caused a spontaneous thrombus a couple of days ago. It was caught, and the swelling's been going down ever since. That was the major worry, aside from fractures to the fourth and fifth costa verae and a fractured tibia."
"She was lucky," Hope replied, clearly untroubled by the jargon.
Guilt edged Maura's stomach, and she felt the familiar nausea that accompanied thoughts of the accident. The car that was meant for her, and that split second when her mother had put her life before her own. "She saved my life," she said quietly. It wasn't meant vindictively, but Hope paused, the silence lingering for a moment before she finally spoke again.
"I think we have quite a bit to talk about," she said.
"Yes," Maura agreed. "Mom said that - " she reddened as the semantics of this new process confused her - "she said that you were coming to Boston."
"I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. I would have been on one sooner, but - " she stopped, and then changed course. "As you're finding out, I'm sure, things are quite complicated."
It was an understatement, but one that Maura forgave easily. In the back of her mind, she caught a twinge of impatience, just the slightest tick, but pushed it away, wanting instead to focus on Hope's visit. The name struck a match in her, and she blurted out a question. "Should I call you Emily?"
It was a nonsequitor, certainly, but the woman on the other end of the line didn't seem bothered by it. "That's who I am," she said, her voice taking an edge.
"I'm sorry," Maura muttered, her lunch threatening to reverse its course.
Hope's – Emily's – voice cut over her quickly, its edge gone, replaced by a softer, more apologetic tone. "No, I'm sorry," she offered. "I'm going off course here, Maura, you'll have to forgive me. All the reading I've done on this has suddenly gone out the window. I do believe I'm supposed to wait for the child to make the request or the invitation to the biological parent, if I remember correctly. But if it is all right with you, I would very much like to see you."
All the times she had imagined meeting her birth parents, she had never let herself toy with the fantasy that they would want to meet her. After the sealed records, the lengths gone to in order to keep their identities secret, she assumed that they never wanted to know anything about her, much less meet her. If anything, she was simply a mistake to be forgotten.
"I hope I haven't made you uncomfortable," Hope continued, covering the silence.
"No," she said quickly. "No, no. I – I – we could have dinner. When it's convenient for you," she added. Did she hear Emily give a sigh of relief, or had she just imagined it?
"That sounds wonderful, Maura. I get in tomorrow, and want to spend some time with your parents. How about dinner Wednesday evening, just the two of us?"
"Okay," Maura replied, reaching for the calendar that always sat on her desk, letting her finger circle the day, etching an imaginary line around it. "Dinner it is."
"Don't go to any great lengths," she said. "I'm not as picky as Constance." She gave a quick laugh, but it startled Maura, and when she didn't join in, the sound faded quickly. "I'm sorry." Another sigh, and Maura wished she had a visual of the woman, something to match to the voice. Did Emily have a visual of her? Did she keep photos of her, like Doyle had all these years? Did the two of them ever talk again? And were these really questions one asked over dinner?
"How about Italian?" she asked instead.
"Yes," Emily said, the relief in her voice making it clear she was grateful for a change in subject. "How about I give you a call on Wednesday? We can talk the finer details."
"That's sounds good." Were they really about to end the conversation? She felt it had just begun, and she'd failed some test of character, the first hurdle in making her sound remotely interesting.
"And Maura?"
"Yes?"
"Nothing is off the table. You can ask me anything. I promise you the truth."
"Okay," she said, then, feeling as if her response was less than adequate, added, "Thank you."
"Wednesday it is, then."
"Wednesday."
After a too formal goodbye, Maura sat silently for a moment, her fingers hovering over her computer keyboard. Her mother had left behind her old life, shedding the skin of Hope Dixon and forging a new identity. And their brief conversation had ignited a huge desire in her to know more. She turned her attention toward her screen, typing in the name that she had refused to research until now: Emily Lawrence, MD.
As Jane walked into the precinct, having thankfully abandoned her picnic basket with her mother, she caught Frankie sitting casually in her chair, his ankles crossed on the top of her desk. She rolled her eyes, and pointed a finger at him. "You and me," she said. "Let's take a walk."
She ignored the looks from Frost and Korsak, who glanced curiously at them, but didn't seem to be in an hurry to meddle with any form of sibling discontent. Frankie grinned, casually waving goodbye at the two of them as he followed his sister into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, she turned him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Don't give me that innocent grin," she chastised. "I know you know."
"Know what?" he asked innocently, but she could see right through the glint mischeivous glint in his eye.
"I know Ma told you about Maura and me," she said. "And don't try to deny it, because I just confronted her about it. Cat's out of the bag."
"Yep," he echoed. "Pussy's out of the bag."
She pursed her lips and punched him hard in the shoulder, eliciting a pained grunt from him, which satisfied her only a little. And her Ma wondered why her brothers were both still single. Subtlely didn't run in the Rizzoli blood, and apparently neither did manners. "Just keep it to yourself for now," she said.
"Why?"
Was he stupid or merely trying to irritate her? She turned fully to look at him, her hands on her hips. "Because I don't want everyone in the precinct to know that I'm a lesbian," she said loudly, and as the doors dinged open, her voice carried fully out into the hallway. Sighing as she and Frankie stepped out of the elevator, she nodded reluctantly at the officers that were waiting to get on.
"Don't worry, Rizzoli, we knew that ship sailed a long time ago," one said with a quick grin, slapping her on the shoulder.
"Great," she said, but her sarcasm was lost as the doors closed, leaving Frankie to grin at her in the hallway.
"Come on, Janey, it's 2012. Even cops don't give a shit if you're gay these days." He shrugged. "If you're a lesbian, that is," he said.
"Yeah, I bet they don't," she muttered. "Meanwhile, if you were gay, imagine the shit you would get."
He shrugged as they walked out onto the steps of the precinct, the sky overcast, but still blindingly bright. "Yeah, whatever. It's BPD, what do you expect? You want to start leading the diversity and sensitivity trainings from now on?" he asked with a chuckle.
She laughed, shaking her head. "No, that's for damn sure."
They both took a seat, Frankie stretching his legs out along the stairs, and Jane clasping her hands around her knees. "I just don't want it getting out. We work together. I'm sure there's a clause or something that says that's against city rules."
Frankie shook his head. "Nope. You can't date someone on the force, but anyone else in city government is fair game."
Jane cocked an eyebrow at him. "Someone's been reading his manual."
He laughed. "I had a crush on that court clerk, you know, the one with the bangs? So I did some research."
Jane nodded. "Oh, yeah. I know that one." She noticed Frankie looking up at her with an expectant look on his face. "What?" she asked.
"You drag me all the way out here, and you don't give me any details? How long has this been going on?" He stared up at her with a pair of curious eyes.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she said, putting her hand out. "Nothing has been going on for any amount of time at all."
"That's not true," he said.
"What, you know better than me, Frankie, about my own love life?" she asked, pointing at him. "What, you and Ma both now?"
Being compared to their mother never went over well, and he gave her a warning look. "No, but there was always something about you and Maura. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was always there. I've seen the way she looks at you. Like you're the best thing since sliced bread."
Jane felt a familiar, exciting churn in her stomach, one she hadn't felt since a particularly shortlived affair right after she got out of the academy. Still, she attempted to play it cool. After all, she was talking to her younger brother. "Maura looks at everyone like that. If you're a living, breathing specimen, she's pretty much amazed by you."
He laughed. "Maybe. But you look at her the same way. And you're not impressed with anyone."
"You got that right," she said with a laugh. Her feelings for Maura had developed into something more than she could put into words, and the past few weeks had only proven how much they both needed each other. Or so she hoped. The only way to find out, she figured, was to take a risk, which is exactly what they'd done a few nights earlier. And again that morning. So far, it was a risk worth taking. That said, she was in desperate need of a distraction. "Hey, you want to watch the game tonight?"
He shook his head. "No can do. I got a date."
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "A date?"
"You're not the only Rizzoli with a love life, Jane."
"Is it the clerk with the bangs?"
He stood, stuffing his hands in his pockets and giving her a grin. "I'm really happy for you and Maura," he said with a nod.
"Yeah, yeah," Jane replied with a wave of her hand. "Is it the clerk with the bangs?"
"No, really," Frankie continued, ignoring the question. "With you and Maura finally going forward, it's exciting. It really demonstrates the possibility of true love."
"Frankie. Girl. Bangs."
He turned, pulling his cap over his eyes. "And it also provides quite a distraction for Ma. Which means, she's off my back and out of my business." He leaned over and tosseled her hair, and she grimaced. "Thanks, Janey." He turned, heading back into the building with a wide smirk, leaving Jane's question unacknowledged.
"Like you could get the girl with the bangs, anyway!" she called after him. She continued to sit for a moment, enjoying the quiet, until a sudden rumble of thunder raised her to her feet, forcing her back to work.
The hardwood floor was cool under Maura's stomach, quickly conducting out the heat from her body, but the wine was quickly taking care of the slight chill. Propping her chin on one hand, she stared eye level at Bass, who was gazing unblinkingly towards her with his usual detachment. She plucked a strawberry from its plastic container and set it in front of him, but he made no move for it. A tortoise was the perfect pet, really, but there were times when she wished for the mindless excitement of a dog, or even the slight judgment of a cat.
She nibbled on her own strawberry. "Come on, Bass, don't be picky," she said.
He finally inched his head further out of his shell and snapped up the fruit. He had been avoiding his favorite snack for the better part of a week, and his eagerness put her somewhat at ease. Her day had been a dearth of productivity after that phone call, and she had spent most of it learning what little she could about her Hope Dixon's new life in San Diego.
The woman's medical history had certainly put her to shame. She graduated from medical school with top honors, practicing as an OB-GYN in one of the city's top hospitals before opening a now thriving practice of her own. There were local articles detailing her community service for underserved women, a few detailing lectures at medical association conferences. Dr. Emily Lawrence was intent on giving and preserving life. Her biological daughter, however, had made a life out of dissecting the dead.
Her phone buzzed next to her, and she quickly picked it up, grateful for the distraction. "Hey," she said, popping another strawberry into her mouth. Bass didn't seemed unperturbed by her consistent filching of his own gourmet snack.
"Hey," Jane said, her voice even huskier over the phone. "You'd already left by the time Frost and I made it back to the precinct. Frank didn't even see you leave."
She hadn't told her head tech that she was leaving, but he'd given her a wide berth over the past few weeks, handling most of the technical analysis on his own. He was helpful, but her lack of focus on work was starting to grate on her. "I am his boss, don't forget," she replied needlessly, only a hint of defensiveness in her voice.
Jane didn't seem to notice. "Did you go by the hospital again?"
Maura slid another strawberry over to Bass. "No, I came home," she replied. Her initial excitement over her dinner with Emily had quickly edged into guilt as she thought about her mother. Her parents had kept her biological mother from her for years, and she didn't imagine that it was easy letting her get in touch with her. And she wasn't in the mood to explore their anxiety. She had enough of her own.
"What are you doing?"
Since the option of lying was out for her, even over the phone, she sighed and simply told the truth. "I'm lying on the floor staring at Bass."
"Well, that sounds riveting," Jane gushed, the phone no barrier against her sarcasm. "What is that, like the equivalent of playing catch for a turtle?"
Maura cracked a smile. "Tortoise," she corrected. "He seems to be enjoying it. What are you doing?"
"I'm lying on the couch staring at Jo Friday." She laughed. "Does this make us pathetic?"
"Not if it occurs as an isolated incident," Maura countered, but couldn't mask her own laugh.
"Good. Listen, Maur, I have a confession to make."
Maura's ears perked up as she glanced at Bass, cocking her head at him. He seemed wholly unperturbed by her sudden concern. "What?"
"Okay, so I didn't run Emily Lawrence's name through any official database," she said. "But I googled the crap out of her this afternoon. But only after Korsak and Frost convinced me that it was the right thing to do."
The revelation made Maura laugh, recalling her own intense search that afternoon, and she hoped that Emily Lawrence didn't have an analytics program connected to her name. "I did, too," she offered. "She certainly seems quite successful." It was an understatement, to say the least. Hope Dixon had managed to salvage a new life out of nothing, which had to require much more than just brains. It required a certain tenacity that Maura envied. It was the same indefatigable resolution that she sometimes saw in Jane.
"I guess," Jane said, and Maura pictured her shrugging. "In a Mother Teresa kind of way."
Maura couldn't read her tone, and she wished the brunette were sitting in front of her rather than back at her own apartment. Verbal cues weren't her strong point. "I called her this afternoon," she said, fidgeting with the green, leafy stem of a strawberry.
Jane paused, and Maura could imagine her propping up on one elbow, pressing the phone to harder to her ear as she furrowed an eyebrow. "Whoa," she breathed, breaking her silence. "What was she like?"
For a second, her cognitive recall failed her, and she wished she had jotted down some notes. "Polite," she said, the description weak, and she felt ridiculous for having nothing more to offer. "She said she hoped I would call."
"Good," Jane replied, her voice easy, but somehow formal, as if not wanting to probe too hard. "So, the million dollar question: are you going to meet her?"
"She's coming in to town this week – for my mother – " she qualified, unwilling to give thought to the possibility that her mother may have scheduled such a trip in order to meet the biological daughter that she hadn't reached out to in over thirty-five years. "We – we said we would get dinner on Wednesday."
"That's good, right?" Jane asked. Clearly, her own tone was just as hard to read over the phone.
"Yeah," she said softly, reaching out and giving Bass a pat on the head after he finally snatched up the last strawberry. "It's something, anyway, right? I'm not going to get my hopes up. There is no need to harbor any unrealistic expectations about her visit."
"Spoken like a true psychologist," Jane said, a smile in her voice. "But, I think you're right, Maura. In fact, I'd advise you to have no expectations at all. You'll just make yourself crazy."
"Right," Maura confirmed. "I'm merely testing a biological hypothesis. Satisfying a natural curiosity to confirm the genomic structure of my origin."
"All right, there, Dr. Phil," Jane said, cutting her off. "I think you get the gist of it. But, don't be too hard on yourself for getting excited. You can let that big brain of yours acknowledge that this is a kind of a big deal. That's okay, too."
"Yeah," Maura replied.
"Now the question is, does Dr. Emily Lawrence require as much planning and aforethought as a visit from Constance Isles?" Jane asked. "Are you freaking out over what to make for dinner yet? Am I going to make an emergency run to Monfrare Ja Blah or something?"
Maura shook her head. "I'm not making dinner," she said, glancing around her home from what she could see from her vantage point on the floor. "I think it will be easier to meet her out." Too much of her home defined who she was, and she wasn't sure she was ready to share all of that with Emily. Not yet.
"I get it," Jane replied. "Having her in your home is… too close to home."
"And what if she thinks Bass is weird?"
"No offense, Maura, but having a forty-pound African tortoise in your house is a little weird. By San Diego standards, that is."
Maura chuckled. "Bass says hi, by the way."
"Hi Bass," Jane offered, casually, before her tone softened. "Not that I can compete with Dinner with Your Biological Mother," she said, pausing for a moment. "But I did make reservations for the two of us tomorrow night at a place in Cambridge."
"Oh, where?" Maura asked, glad to focus on something that made her stomach flutter in a good way, for once. Spending time with Jane was easy, but this dinner was different, and the pleasurable flutter in her stomach soon drifted below her pelvis.
"Uh uh," Jane replied. "No details. I don't need you scouring the menu or analyzing their latest health scores. I've done the research, and it's a perfectly acceptable place. You'll like it. Trust me. Just be ready at 7:30."
"Jane, I need to know the place so that I know what to wear," she said, the normality of their banter comfortably familiar. Why was everything so easy to forget when it came to Jane?
"Maura, you wear couture to the morgue. I think you'll be fine."
"Fine," she said, giving up with a light chuckle. "I just – " she was interrupted by the chime of her doorbell, and she glanced behind her towards the door. "Hang on," she said, rising to her feet. "Someone's at the door." She kept the phone pressed against her ear, walking tentatively towards the front door. Rarely did she get late visitors, unless it was Angela looking to watch an episode of Bill O'Reilly. The visitor on her stoop, however, made her gasp.
"Maur, who is it?" Jane asked, and Maura could hear the protectiveness in her voice.
"It's my father," she said slowly. "I have to go."
"Maur, if there's anything wrong – "
"Of course," she said, automatically. "I'll call you. Bye Jane," she whispered, a panic fanning into her chest as she opened the door. Her mother had been fine when she left that morning, but a myriad of potential complications was suddenly flooding her mind. "What's wrong?" she asked, her body stiffening. "What happened?"
Her father's eyes stared blankly before his face morphed into an apologetic countenance. "Nothing's wrong," he said quickly, his brow furrowing foolishly. "Your mother is fine." He held up a brown paper bag. "I got her dinner from her favorite Parisian restaurant, and thought I would drop something by for you."
The air rushed back into Maura's lungs as she breathed an extended sigh, and she motioned him inside. He stepped over the threshold, his shoulders hunched, as if he were bigger than the place itself. When was the last time he had visited her house? Whenever he did sweep into Boston, which was extremely rare, she mostly met him and her mother for a dinner at the very restaurant that he had just mentioned.
He laid the bag tentatively on the kitchen counter, glancing down at Bass with an amused spread of his lips. "I see your tortoise is looking fit."
"It's the strawberries," she said, a lame attempt at humor as she stooped to pick the container and her wine glass off the floor. "Can I pour you a glass?" she asked. Manners were not only automatic in the Isles household, but they were a good way to avoid actual conversation as well.
"Sure," he said, an answer that she hadn't expected. Truthfully, she had thought he would offer the food and be on his way. But instead he pulled out a chair and sat, slipping two containers out of the bag. "I wasn't sure what you liked," he said. "I couldn't remember which dish you used to get, and the menu has changed. Not for the better, as you mother says."
"How is Mom?" she asked. "Dr. Carter said they were keeping an eye on her red blood cells to prevent any additional thrombosis, but that she might be able to go home within a few days."
"Well, I'm not certain about the cells," he said, tentatively. He was never patient with her when it came to medical jargon. "But she'll be home this weekend."
"That's great news," she said, setting a couple of plates in front of him. She poured him a glass of wine, taking extra care in topping her own glass off before sitting down next to him. "Thank you for bringing the dinner," she said politely.
"We both have to eat," he said, keeping his eyes on his food. "Your mother said you stopped by this morning."
She nodded, taking a bite of potato, which was much hotter than she'd expected. "I did. I actually wanted to apologize," she began, but her father spoke over her.
"An apology isn't necessary." He glanced at her. "You did nothing wrong. It was a tough situation for all of us yesterday." He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and Maura returned her attention to her own food, unwilling to offer anything else. "I know Hope is coming," her father said. "And I've heard you'll be having dinner with her."
Maura balked, surprised. She hadn't expected word to travel so fast in such an estranged family. "It's just for my own peace of mind," she said. "That's all."
"Maura, I know you're an adult," he said, then chuckled. "You've been an adult since you were five." He took a sip of his wine, vetting his words before he spoke. "But I'm still your father, and I feel it's my duty to tell you that… " He exhaled, setting his wine glass back onto the counter with a light clink. "I don't want to see you get hurt," he said, the last words sifting out quickly, as if he were ripping a bandage off his tongue.
"Why would I get hurt?" she asked. "I don't expect anything. From anyone," she added.
He looked at her, and suddenly his eyes were rapt with a concentrated attention that he reserved for solely for discussing the finer points of anthropology. "Maura," he said with a sad smile. "It's not expectations that ruin you. It's hope." He drank the rest of his wine down quickly. Her parents savored wine, they didn't drink it. "Finish your dinner," he said, turning his attention back to his plate.
After a few quiet moments, the sounds of their clanking silverware filling the silence, he got up, refilling his wine glass, and his attention grazed over her living room. His eye caught something, and he squinted, walking towards it. She knew without turning around what he had found, and waited for his voice. "I didn't know you kept these," he said.
She turned in her seat, looking over at a framed series of fossils that he had given her before she had left for boarding school. At the time she had thought they were hideous, a fragmentary find from an unimportant dig, but over time she had come to love the contours of them, and the artful way the lines intersected, reminiscent of a life far outlived, but still remembered. She'd had them framed after college. "They're one of my favorite pieces," she said.
"I remember that dig," he said. "Everything had gone wrong. Transportation, our guide, the weather. It was only on the last day that I found those. Granted, the college wanted nothing to do with them, but I had such a joy at coming across them. Finally, something had gone right. Something had finally gone right," he repeated, his smiling fading away.
He walked back to her, placing a hand on the back of her head and pecking a quick kiss on the crown of her head, a foreign gesture, but she leaned into it. Wordlessly, he sat back down to his dinner. "I read recently," he said, his voice a bit raw in his throat, "that medicological investigations are becoming quite the trend in developing nations. Have any desire to practice in Tanzania?"
She glanced at him, offering a quick smile before shaking her head. "I'm quite happy here," she said.
"And quite successful," he said, taking a bite of pasta.
She shrugged, her face reddening. "They call me 'Queen of the Dead'." She had no idea why she had shared that more than embarrassing piece of knowledge with the one man that she had spent her whole life trying to impress, but nonetheless, it was out there.
"Ah," he said. "Not many people can call themselves royalty." He smiled, faintly. "My colleagues merely call me a 'Barterer of Bones.'" He raised his glass towards her, and she met his gesture with her own. "You win," he said with a smile, a gesture that seemed to crack through the hardness of his jaw, and Maura couldn't help but return it.
Thanks for the encouragement and feedback. It makes my fingers type faster. Ha.