Lee pulled back from his mother's embrace after a moment and said, "I still can't believe it. You're really here and alive. It just...it seems so unreal." He ran his hand through his hair and threw himself back on the couch staring down at the floor.
"I assure you, it's quite real. You have no idea how many times over the years that I wanted to find you sooner, reach out to you, tell you the truth, but I...just couldn't."
"You could have," Lee said, "maybe not when I was a kid, but as an adult. I'm a highly trained, highly skilled agent. I couldn't have protected myself against Blackthorne In fact, I did. Well, with Amanda's help."
"God, I never wanted this life for you," She said sadly as she sat beside him and clasped his hand in hers. "Your father and I always tried to keep you away from what we did for a living, keep you out of it, and keep you safe."
"I get that, but only to a point," Lee said pulling his hand from hers.
"Wouldn't you do the same for your own children?"
"Well, that's the thing. You've learned just a little of my history with Amanda. As I told you, we tried to keep them out of it by keeping our marriage a secret, but when we found out that Amanda was pregnant with the twins, once we really got to talking about it, we realized that keeping them in the dark was the worst thing we could have done. Without knowing what we really do for a living, they wouldn't know what to be on the lookout for or how to protect themselves."
"It still scares me sometimes," Amanda said from behind her husband carrying a tray laden with coffee cups. "We see a lot of scary stuff on the job and I don't want any of that scary stuff touching our children."
"I completely understand," Jennie said with a look at Lee.
"I didn't know how you take your coffee, so I brought in cream and sugar just in case," Amanda said as she put sugar in her own.
"Just a little cream, if you don't mind," Jennie answered.
"Just like somebody else I know," Amanda said with a smile at Lee as she finished serving up the coffee cups before sitting on her husband's lap. Lee slid his free arm around her and pulled her against him.
"Well, I don't poison my coffee with sugar like you do," He teased as he kissed the top of her head.
"So, you were talking about your decision to reveal the secrecy of your marriage," Jennie said. "Amanda told me earlier about how the children reacted. What about your mother-in-law? She must not have taken the news too badly since the two of you seem to be very close."
"We are now, but it wasn't always the case. It was a little difficult with her. You see, she figured out that Amanda was pregnant on her own before we told her we were married and it was not pretty. You want to tell the story or should I?" Lee said to his wife.
"Go right ahead. You could probably tell it better anyway since you bore the brunt of my mother's outrage. Besides, I wasn't there for the whole conversation since the twins decided to make me sick at just the wrong moment."
"Ok, so we had decided to cut our private weekend short by a day to break the news to her first, thinking that would give her a day to think about things before we told the boys."
August 15, 1987
"Mother!" Amanda called as she and Lee entered the house on Maplewood through the French doors leading into the den.
"In the kitchen, Darling," Dotty called back.
"You ready for this," Amanda said as she linked her hand with her husband's for strength.
"No," he said honestly, "But we don't have a choice." He gripped her hand tightly as they walked from the den to the kitchen.
"You two decide to end your romantic weekend already?" Dotty said coolly with a knowing look on her face.
"Romantic weekend," Amanda said with a worried look at Lee because of the tone in her mother's voice.
"Well, you don't honestly expect me to believe yet another cockamamie story about you two working these endless late nights and yet another weekend that perfectly coincides with Joe's weekend with Phillip and Jamie, now do you?"
"Listen," Lee said calmly, "Why don't we all just sit down and talk?"
"I don't want to sit down. There comes a point when I just can't take being lied to anymore, especially now."
"What do you mean, especially now?"Amanda asked nervously.
"Just answer me this, Amanda. When is the baby due?"
"Baby?", Lee choked out looking at Amanda with a worried expression.
"Yes, the baby," Dotty demanded. "Do you think that I haven't figured out by now that you got my daughter pregnant; Not that I'm entirely surprised. I mean, I've known for months that the two of you have been sleeping together, ever since bits of your clothing started turning up in her laundry."
"Mother, just listen for a minute," Amanda said. "There's more to it than that."
"Stop, Amanda. Just stop. If you're going to make up yet another lame story, I don't want to hear it. I don't care that you've been sleeping together. You're both adults and God knows you've been lonely for far too long and I know that you love Lee. I've known it since the first time I ever heard you talk about him, long before you ever introduced me to him. I just thought you, both of you," she said with a pointed glance at Lee, "would exercise more caution. I mean, my God, Amanda you've got two impressionable young boys. How are you going to explain this to them? You're supposed to be setting an example for them. How are you going to do that when you come home pregnant out of wedlock?"
"Mother, I'm not..."
Dotty cut her off again, "Don't even try to deny it, Missy. Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I haven't noticed how tired you've been lately, how you've been turning your nose up at your breakfast and how when you don't, you haven't been able to keep it down? My room is right next to yours, you know. Or how about this? I'm the one who's been doing the majority of the household shopping since you're either working or with Lee and do you know what I've noticed. You haven't added tampons to the shopping list for at least two months. Do you have an alternate explanation for all of that?" Amanda answer was to cover her mouth and make a beeline for the stairs as a wave of nausea hit her. "You see," Dotty said with a wild gesture at Lee. "There she goes again."
"Dotty, will you just calm down a second and listen. This really isn't what you think."
"Don't you tell me to calm down, Lee Stetson. I am her mother and I have every right to be upset by this. I am worried for my daughter and I want to know what you intend to do about it," she said with a wild gesture.
Lee grabbed her arms to stop their wild flailing, "Dotty, listen, really."
Dotty wrenched her arms from his grasp and said, "No. All I want is a very simple answer from you to a very simple question. This is your child she's carrying."
"I know that, Dotty, and I have every intention of being there for her and for our unborn child every step of the way, but you've got to calm down and listen to reason," he said as he grabbed her arms again.
"Be there for her?"Dotty questioned. "Does that mean you intend to marry her?"
"No," Lee said. "But..." Lee hesitated unsure if he should drop the bomb without Amanda being there with him.
Dotty glanced down at his hands on her arms, fully intending to pull away again when she noticed the wedding band he was wearing. "I see," Dotty said picking his left hand up from her arm. "You're already married." She covered her face with her hands and said, "God, this is worse than I thought." When she lowered her hands, she said, "Of course. You've been married all this time."
"Yes," Lee confessed breathing a sigh of relief now that the truth was out. "Look, we wanted to tell you, but it's complicated which is why we all need to sit down and talk about this."
"Well, I must say, this certainly explains a lot. No wonder Amanda kept you hidden from us for so long even though it was obvious by the way that she talked about you that she had feelings for you. I mean, this all makes perfect sense now. It's why she feels the need to make up stories when she wants to spend time with you alone, why she's so secretive about her time with you and why you two have been together all this time, but don't seem any closer to making a permanent commitment that you did when you've been together since before Christmas."
"Longer than that, actually," Lee said. "We've been together for well over a year."
"This love affair has been going on for more than a year?"
"This is more than just a love affair," Lee said in confusion.
"Well, what else would you call it? Let me ask, you something, does your wife know? About Amanda, I mean?"
It struck Lee then exactly what Dotty meant. "Dotty, you've got the wrong idea here."
"How could I have the wrong idea? The evidence is obvious. The wedding band and you just said yourself that you're married."
"Yes, I'm married, Dotty, to Amanda. That's what we've been trying to tell you."
"No, I don't believe for a second that my daughter would get married without telling me about it."
"But you do believe that she'd have an illicit love affair with a married man? Come on, you know Amanda better than that. I've only known her for four years where you've known her her entire life and even I know that's something she would never do."
"No, this is crazy," Dotty said.
"It's true, Mother," Amanda said as she descended the stairs and put her arm around Lee's waist.
"Are you ok?"Lee said brushing a soft kiss against her forehead.
"Yeah, I'm ok. It's just this baby of yours is definitely making his presence known," Amanda said with a slight grimace.
"Oh, so it's just my baby now. What happened to our baby?"
"So, you admit that you're pregnant?"Dotty said.
"I was never denying it, Mother. I was trying to tell you that I'm not pregnant out of wedlock like you thought, that Lee and I got married six months ago."
"You're really married?"Dotty said disbelievingly.
"Yes, Mother," Amanda said holding up her left hand displaying the rings she wore.
"So," Amanda said continuing the story where her husband left off. "Once we convinced her that we were married and that we weren't having some tawdry, clandestine love affair, we had no choice but to tell her the whole truth about the agency and what we really do. We'd never have been able to explain to her the reasoning behind keeping our secret if we hadn't."
"So, did she accept it?"Jennie said on pins and needles.
"More or less," Lee answered. "She was still angry that we kept it from her, but I think that knowing she had another grandchild on the way helped ease that a little."
"Of course, I hadn't been to my own doctor or had an ultrasound yet, so we didn't know that I was carrying not one, but two babies. The doctor told me that was why I was so tired all the time and why the morning sickness was more severe than it had been with my first two pregnancies."
"When I saw everything that you went through to bring our children into this world, I think it made me fall even more in love with you," Lee said as he ran his fingers through her hair affectionately.
"Aw, that's so sweet," Amanda said as she kissed him softly. "But don't think I'm ready to go through that again. When they start coming two at a time, it's time to do something about it."
"You mean you don't want ten more," He teased.
"So, what is it your plan to keep me barefoot and pregnant?"
"No, but we sure might have some fin trying," He said with a devilish grin.
"Perhaps I should leave you two alone," Jennie said. "I've intruded on your family time enough for one day."
"No, don't go. You're not intruding," Amanda said. "Is she, Lee?"
"No, not at all," Lee said knowing that it would do no good to argue with his wife.
"In fact, I was thinking you should probably stay here tonight. I mean, that dingy little safe house can't be anywhere near as comfortable as our guest room. Besides, I can't imagine that your CIA contacts will allow you to stay there much longer now that they know that your case has been closed and your life is no longer in danger."
"No, I couldn't possibly," Jennie said not quite sure that her son wanted her there wondering if he'd just said so to appease his wife.
"Why? You don't have any place else you can go once the CIA kicks you out of the safe house, do you?"
"No," she admitted.
"Then where better to stay than with your family," Amanda said.
"But all of my things are there," Jennie protested.
"No problem," Amanda said. "Lee can take you back by there in the minivan to pack up your things while I get the guest room set up for you. It'll give you two some alone time to do some more catching up."
"Well, I suppose," Jennie said still unsure.
"You might as well stop arguing," Lee said. "One thing you should know about my wife is that once she's got her mind made up, there's no stopping her."
"Well, it seems I have no choice," Jennie replied with a smile.
"Good, then it's all settled," Amanda said as she stood. "You two go ahead and get to it and I'm going to go check on Phillip and Jamie while you two get ready to go, then I'll work on the guest room." She quickly gathered up the coffee cups and carried them and the tray out of the room with her.
"She is quite the bundle of energy for a woman who just gave birth to twins six weeks ago," Jennie said marveling at her daughter-in-law."
Lee shook his head, smiled and said, "There's not another woman like her in the world. She never stops surprising me."