Author's note: thank you very much for all the reviews!
Chapter Fifteen: August, 29th
In spite of being a science lover to the point she had made of it her career, Maura Isles had never liked dates and calendars. Whenever she looked at one, a sensation of suffocation crept underneath her skin and made her breathe loud.
Dates made her feel trapped, unable to move around freely as if her mere action had to be – somehow – determined by them. Numbers, months, years. Everyone obeyed subconsciously the chronology of the passing of time and she found it depressing, extremely sad.
Yet on August, 29th she would learn several things.
First: that Jane had put marshmallows in the oven back in July and that was the reason why it had been sticky since then. The marshmallows in question having set on fire in the process, a scientific one as the Italian would say when trying desperately to justify her acts.
Second: that the AC of the morgue could break down and the whole floor succumb slowly to the humid 95°F of Boston within a couple of hours, transforming the whole place into a pure open air mass grave. She still could thank the hospitals nearby for taking care of the corpses.
Third: that she was pregnant. Just that. A message left on her voice mail as she had been busy dealing with the AC emergency to the point that she had forgotten the clinic was supposed to call her back to give her the result of the test after the insemination. Positive results.
August, 29th.
The date would echo in her head before engraving on her skin an invisible mark that would never leave her ever again. August, 29th. The day her life had changed. The day a phone call had made it tip over and nothing would ever be the same.
I am pregnant. Instinctively – ridiculously – Maura looked down at her stomach and squinted her eyes at it. There – under the different layers of skin – laid a heap of cells developing to an impressive speed in order to form a human being.
And as much as she was aware of it, she couldn't feel anything.
It was all happening in silence, discreetly. To the point it could have gone on for a while if it hadn't been for the blood sample sent to the lab a little while ago. You are carrying life inside of you. There is something growing – there – with the help of your body. A vital help. Without you, it is not working. Without you, there wouldn't be anything.
It wasn't a boost of confidence but a revelation: she was able to carry life. Now all she had to do was tell Jane about it because – so far – nobody knew but her. Absolutely nobody unless she took in consideration the group of cells developing inside her body.
"I am starving!" Rushing back from the bathroom where she had washed her hands after a full day of work, Jane literally let herself fall on her chair and grabbed the menu. Pointless, she knew it by heart. They came to The Dirty Robber at least three times a week. "Miranda brought these gluten free donuts at work, today. They're FANTASTIC. Of course you'll tell me the amount of calories is higher than the Himalaya but I've just said gluten free food was good. See? I'm improving."
The honey blonde smiled. Had Jane also forgotten that the lab was supposed to call her back today? Everything was so different from the first time around. By then, they had obsessed – to the point of getting sick – over it. And now it had completely left their mind to the point of actually forgetting about it.
"I won't be able to take part in the International Convention of Forensics Studies in May, next year."
Glass of water in hand, Jane raised a surprised eyebrow at the comment. "Oh. Have you been asked to stay in Boston by then? Too bad, you seemed really enthusiastic over that nerdy stuff. Even more at the prospect of it being held in Oslo."
Maura shook her head. She was boiling inside but – curiously enough – looked very calm. "I wasn't asked to... Or if so indirectly. No. It turns out that I won't be physically able to go."
Jane shrugged, completely unaware of the implicit hint. "And that's why Skype was created. I'm sure your science weirdo pals can find a way to make you take part in it even if you are stuck here." Hand on Maura's. Comfort mode: activated. "Don't worry, sweetie. As grandma Roberta would say, where there's a will there's a..."
"Baby. There is a baby."
Jane chuckled, still lost in her random thoughts. "Nah. A way. Where there's a will, there's a way. Not a baby. There's no..." Oh snap. She blinked, almost let go of her glass of water and stared at Maura as if she had just addressed her in Chinese. "What have you said?" Strangled voice.
"The lab called me this afternoon, or better said left me a message because I was busy dealing with this AC issue. You have no idea how terrified we were to see the corpses deteriorated as the heat would have accelerated the process of decomposition. It would have been terrible for the reputation of our services..."
Before Maura's rambling, Jane – still stupefied by the news – kept on nodding like these fake plastic dogs people put in their car; desperately trying to follow and not lose tracks of the whole conversation.
"Thankfully the Senator did me a favor and we managed to dispatch the bodies to a couple of hospitals which means that I won't be very often at my office these next days so if you are looking for me, you will have to go to..."
"Maura!" Limits of Jane's patience: reached.
The honey blonde jumped of surprise – shook her head as if coming back to reality after what would have looked like a vocabulary seizure – and shrugged. "They called at 4pm. I listened to the message at 6.30... The results are back. They are positive. I am pregnant."
Jane let immediately go of the bunch of peanuts she had just grabbed – remembering how her friend Guadalupe had compared them to her baby – and swallowed hard.
For God's sake, say something, Riz'! Why do you stay quiet now? You're going to scare her! Damn it, you already do. Look! Her smile's fading away. Come on, react!
Jane looked down at her wife's stomach with perplexity and frowned as she realized how the gesture was slightly stupid. She tried to smile but against all expectations, her lips refused to curl up. The muscles weren't moving. Was she getting paralyzed? A facial paralysis. It could happen, she had seen it on television.
But no. All of a sudden, a tear welled up in her eye and as sliding on her cheek made one of her facial muscles react. False alert. She wasn't paralyzed.
Just moved to the point of bursting into tears in the middle of a packed restaurant where all the customers or so knew her. Maura wasn't doing any better. She had turned red as brick as her lips tremble in what was supposed to look like a smile. Witnessed from the outside, it had to be the scene of the century.
"I promise I will teach him – or her – how wrong it is to put marshmallows in an oven."
Jane Rizzoli had never minded about dates and calendars, mostly because she barely paid attention to them all in all. In several occasions, such behavior had put her in rather delicate situations but – somehow – she had always managed to overcome them with tact and what she saw as an ounce of talent.
She remembered her relatives and friends' birthdays – her future vacations – and that was all. How many times had she come to work on a day off because she hadn't checked a calendar?
Yet on August, 29th, she would learn several things.
First: that - seeing how Maura had reacted to the marshmallow misadventure – it was better to not tell her about the peanut butter incident on the couch she had hidden adding cushions and pretending her personal touch made the whole looked cozier.
Second: that gluten free donuts were delicious but she was still hungry after having eaten a dozen of them – mini-ones but still – and this wasn't good for her diet-to-be after finding out she had put on weight lately. She had been so reluctant to go to the gym.
Third: that she was going to be a mother, that she and Maura were about to have a child. That the insemination had worked out, this time. At last. And within a few months – if it went as it should – they would be welcoming a new-born into their house.
Their child.
August, 29th.
From now on, Jane would always look differently at calendars.