Everyone familiar belongs to Janet. The mistakes are solely mine.
It's been interesting to see how many parallels there are between being a Ranger and being a father. You catch sleep only when you can. You never know what your day is going to involve until you're already elbow-deep in it. You have to make important decisions without all the information you need for a successful outcome being presented to you.
Or like this morning, you end up doing an hour of PT because your baby girl decided she was ready for action at 0500. I've played with Steph, Olivia, Gunny and Mo, on our big bed that has me thinking I'll need to find a larger one as our baby and dogs grow. My daughter and I have already shot a few hoops in the living room, and I've chased her excited-self, still encased in her Xs and Os pjs, through the kitchen and down the hall to the sound of my personal soundtrack that her laughter has become in our apartment.
That was a good moment for a number of reasons, not only because when I scooped Olive up ... she unfolded against me as if she'd been anxiously waiting for the moment I'd catch her, but also because we were standing by the sideboard where my wife had left her cell last night. Steph knows anyone can reach her through me if it's important enough, so at home her phone becomes only an afterthought.
"Should we answer Mama's phone for her?" I asked Olivia.
She ducked her head under my chin, not giving much of an answer beyond that, but I wasn't looking for one. I checked the screen and had an urge to pull a similar move as Olivia's. Hell, my daughter likely sensed who was disturbing our time and that was her way of telling me.
"Smart girl," I told my baby before opening the call.
"Stephanie? What is this I hear about you getting Joseph fired? I just got off the phone with Angie Morelli and she had a lot to say about you and your husband, and how you just cost Joseph his career."
I found myself holding Olivia closer, suddenly reminded of how miraculous it is that Stephanie is such an amazing mother when she got stuck with this one. No one would call my wife at seven-twelve in the morning unless someone is dead or Helen got herself wrapped up in a new drama.
"Morelli cost himself his job," I told my mother-in-law. "If he was smart enough to know that it's not polite or legal to stalk someone else's wife, he would still have a paycheck."
Stone cold silence was her response. No surprise, my daughter's reaction to hearing my voice I prefer far more.
"Ranger?"
"There would be no one else answering my wife's phone this early except for me."
Olive kicked me in the ribs with two bare baby toes. That could be because she's been kept still two minutes too long, or somehow Stephanie has already taught her how to tell me 'Good one'.
"We'll get back to enjoying ourselves in a minute," I said to my baby.
Thankfully, having no idea what's going on in our home, Helen assumed I was speaking to her daughter, not mine.
"Is Stephanie there?" She asked me.
"In our apartment ... yes, but she's in the shower. I was talking to Olive," I said, just to annoy her.
Nicknaming Olivia after a food isn't something the chronically-discontent Burg-badger approves of, but then again ... not much is.
Another lengthy pause took place. Having to have a conversation with me clearly isn't something she had planned on or enjoys in the slightest.
"How is Olivia?" She asked, trying to stick to neutral topics now that she doesn't have Stephanie to bitch at or about.
"She's incredible. Already kicking ass and taking names."
Not prepared for our family's form of bragging, Helen was knocked off-balance. "Will Stephanie be out soon?"
"I told her to take her time, so no. If you want to discuss Morelli, I'll be more than happy to sub for Steph. She hasn't had anything to do with him for longer than she and I have been together. She shouldn't have to talk to or about him, or be held responsible for what he alone chooses to do."
"Mrs. Morelli said Joseph's badge was taken away from him first thing this morning."
I know. I've been replaying the visual ever since my man at the station called to tell me. Steph had been smiling about it on her way to the shower. This time, it was more than me that put a smile on my wife's face. Apparently, a cop ranting about things that smack of wild conspiracy theories, with no facts or proof to back them up, makes the Chief worried about employing someone who now appears to have an issue with what's real and what is imagined. Someone strapping a bomb to you and somebody breaking into your home in order to diffuse it, sounds completely insane to most people.
"Had he acted professionally, he would have stayed a member of the force," I told Mrs. Plum. "He had no right to harass my wife and daughter, or go playing the victim when he got caught at it."
"He said he was on his way home," was Helen's parroted response.
"If that's true, then it's not at all possible for me to have done what claims I did if he had just been passing by Mary Lou's house," I pointed out. "For me to have had any conversation or contact with him, he would've had to have been doing exactly what he swears he wasn't. If he only took a different way home that day, I never would have seen him since even on a good day it takes ten minutes to get from here to the Burg. What was he doing still in the Stankovics' neighborhood? At least one of his statements is a total lie. And both make him unfit to be enforcing the law when he clearly feels it's okay to break it when it suits him."
The station, and those in power beyond it, I'd made aware of Morelli's unhealthy fascination with my wife. Combine that knowledge with the beer or three Morelli knocked back that had prompted him to rage to a fellow cop about Stephanie's husband - who he unwisely said should be put on a boat and sent back to Cuba - sticking an explosive to him and paying another nut to wait for him in his home to either disengage the bomb or toast marshmallows over him when he blows, struck Morelli's supposed buddy as Joe being on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I agree, but not because of what I did or didn't do. The fact that Stephanie is still taking up residence in his mind means his isn't working right. And that screams he's a real danger to the public. I would like to think the forced counseling he was ordered to undergo will end up helping him, given that family has had issues from the time it formed, but the fact that he doesn't even see that he has a problem, makes a recovery unlikely.
I'd like to shrug him off as not my problem, but he'll continue to be until he lets the idea of Steph go for good, he dies, or I kill him because he remains fixated on her. No matter how this plays out, it isn't for Stephanie or my daughter to worry about.
"Do you have anything else to say?" I asked Mrs. Plum. "Olivia would like to get back to playing and I don't want to keep her waiting. So if you're finished trying to pin something else on your daughter that isn't in any way her fault, I'll be hanging up."
"Will you tell Stephanie to call me as soon as she can?"
"No."
And then I disconnected. Steph can call her back if she wants, but I will never tell her to. She's suffered enough.
My daughter suddenly got a renewed burst of energy, as did Gunny and Mo, and I knew why. My wife's on the move. Our dogs had been less interested in playing than their little owner, choosing to take advantage of having our bed all to themselves until Steph reemerged.
"Ma ... ma ... ma!" Olivia yelled, almost even with my ear as she sat up in my arms to smile at her Mama over my shoulder.
I was relieved of Olive's weight as soon as Steph got close enough to kiss her.
"I'm sorry," my wife said to me.
The side of her face is now resting against our daughter's, and that gave me an eerie before and after image of both Stephanie and Olivia.
"For what? You haven't done anything wrong," I assured her.
"By loving and marrying me, you got saddled with my crazy family."
"Correction, Babe. By loving you ... I got Olivia, a home that feels like one, and two protective bed-dogs. By marrying you, I received all that I've ever wanted."
