At one of their Sunday night family dinners, Laura and Steve were the only ones to visit Carl and Harriette. Everyone else has had plans. Max and Eddie were at a concert. Estelle and Fletcher were at the very same concert with better seats. Even 3J had gone to sleep over at a friend's house with Richie. Rachel was out on a date. Myrtle and Eric were home with the kids. Laura was glad to see her parents, but she couldn't help but feel like she may have had more interesting plans if her husband were really her husband again.

Still, there was something sort of healing about watching Steve, without his memory, spend time with her parents. She wished she knew how to explain it to him. Her parents treated this less mature Steve with the respect they treated her husband with, but he still acted just like he did in high school. It was sweet to see Carl care so deeply about Steve, even though he was driving him ten times crazier than he had been in recent years.

Laura watched from the kitchen window as they stood out by the grill together. Carl was showing him how to flip a hamburger patty. This was a skill that her Steve had mastered after his hibachi training, but this Steve was flipping hamburger patties straight to the ground when they didn't land directly on Carl's face. Laura laughed and looked back at her mom. "God, he's so ridiculous."

Harriette chuckled. "How are you two doin'? Is he driving you crazy yet?"

Laura sat back at the kitchen table beside her and picked up a cracker from the plate of cheese and crackers in front of them. "No. I wouldn't say that."

"He's so different. You look at Steve before the accident, and he's still so… unique that it's easy to miss how much he's grown, but when you compare the two…" Her eyes widened.

Laura nodded. "Yeah, it's painfully obvious."

Harriette looked away from her. "I guess I was just a little worried you might be… starting to get a little annoyed by him, like you used to."

Laura shook her head. "I get why you would ask, Ma, but that's not it at all. Obviously, I want him to get his memory back because I miss the man I married, but this Steve doesn't bother me. I love this Steve, too."

"That's good," she said firmly. "I'm glad." She reached out and squeezed her hand.

Laura looked at her seriously for a minute. "There is… one… small… problem though," she cringed, her voice getting squeaky.

"What's that?" she asked, cocking her head.

Laura pursed her lips and forced a smile. She looked away from her for a second and widened her eyes. She tucked her hair behind her ear and finally looked back at her. "What's the longest dry spell you and Daddy have ever had?"

"Dry spell?" Harriette repeated. She reached a hand out and gestured awkwardly. "You mean…?"

"Yeah," Laura nodded nervously.

Harriette nodded thoughtfully. "Oh, w-well," she stammered, trailing off.

"Mom, it's been 44 days," Laura snapped. "And it's not exactly fair because he was unconscious for some of it, and then he was in the hospital, and it's really only been 21 days that he's been home that we could have…, but before this, we never went this long! Never! Based on what I've read in magazines lately, and I've bought a lot of them, I think maybe Steve and I were the weird ones. We have… a lot of sex. Well, had. Like a lot."

Harriette's eyes widened as Laura continued to ramble.

"Before this, it was extremely weird for us to miss a week. Usually, we have sex several times a week, and I mean, several, and now it's been 44 days. This is the longest I've ever gone without sex since I started having sex, and I can't believe I went 21 years in my last dry spell. It was 21 years. Then 44 days. Then my longest one after that was probably… 11 days? It was when I was studying for the Bar, and I remember it vividly. That's what a big deal it was for us."

Harriette took a deep breath to finally respond, but Laura continued talking.

"I know he's not ready yet, and that's fine. I'm fine with that. I will wait as long as I have to, but I just wanna know if a judge would be lenient if I totally snapped and killed the next guy who cuts me off in traffic because I think that might happen."

Harriette reached out and grabbed her hand. She squeezed it tightly. "Honey, take a breath. You could use one."

Laura nodded and forced herself to concentrate as she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"Laura, your father and I have been married since we were twenty years-old. We've gone a lot longer than 44 days.

"How long?" Laura asked.

"'Bout five months."

Laura's jaw dropped. "Five months?" she echoed.

Harriette nodded. "I'm not saying that's normal for us. Your father and I… have also always been… physical," she said firmly, "but your father had been working a really rough beat. He was dealing with a lot of… sex crimes and domestic violence. You were really young, and he was having a hard time expressing it, but he was struggling with the idea of you becoming a woman and dealing with every danger out there that women face."

Laura's brow furrowed.

"It really killed the mood."

Laura laughed nervously. "How old was I?"

"3 or 4," Harriette answered. "And on nights when he wasn't coming home too exhausted to move, he was coming home ornery and grumpy."

"So what happened? Did he switch beats after five months?"

"No," Harriette answered. "He worked that beat for four years."

"So how did you get past it?"

"We talked and talked and talked," she answered.

"Did you see a marriage counselor?"

"Not for that. I've told you before, we've seen one, but this wasn't about our marriage. This was about your dad. He saw a therapist that works with a lot of cops for about eight months."

"Mom, what did you do? Because that seems like a pretty good reason to not wanna have sex, kinda like losing your memory, but what did you do when you really, really wanted to and he… didn't?"

"Oh, different things. Sometimes I distracted myself with the kids or the house, sometimes I got a babysitter and tried to get him in the mood, sometimes I pushed a little too hard. I took up water polo for about a month."

Laura laughed. "What?!"

"Oh, yeah! I got pretty good 'til I realized I had absolutely no desire to play water polo."

Laura laughed again defeatedly and thrust her face down into her hands. "What am I gonna do, Mom?"

"Well," Harriette paused, "are you and Steve seeing a counselor?"

Laura hesitated. She wasn't supposed to tell, but this was her mom, and she needed her right now. "Yes," she admitted.

"How's it going?"

"Good," she sighed and met her eyes again. "It really is going well. We've made so much progress, and we're talking a lot more openly, but we're just not there yet, and it's clear we're not gonna be there for a while."

"Well, then you're gonna wait. As patiently as you can."

Laura pouted. "And that's it?"

"And that's it."

"Well, I already knew that," Laura grumbled.

Harriette raised an eyebrow. "Well, what were you hoping I was gonna say? That you should take a Spanish lover?"

Laura shrugged. "Maybe an Italian one." They both laughed. "No, I guess I just wanted you to say that 44 days is the longest anyone has ever gone, and that I was an incredibly patient and generous wife." Laura side-eyed her. "But then you said I might have to wait five months, so now I'm just pretending we never had this conversation."

"Laura," Harriette said firmly, "you are a good wife and even a generous wife. I wouldn't call you patient, but you never have been."

Laura clicked the tongue against the roof of her mouth and smacked her arm.

"As long as you are fully committed to helping Steve through this, you'll get through this."

Laura nodded. "I am. I have no interest in finding an Italian lover. Steve's the only one I want. I just… I want him so bad," she whined.

Harriette patted her back gently as Carl and Steve burst through the back door with their burgers.

Well, burger.

"We have two choices," Carl announced. "We can either order pizza or split a single hamburger patty four ways."

Steve stood by his side nervously and pointed at the only burger that made it to the plate. "The good news is we were able to flip a burger higher than the roof. The bad news is there are about seven burgers on the roof."

Laura relaxed slightly as her goofy husband came back into the room. She laughed and stood up. "I'll order the pizza," she announced. She pinched Steve's cheek affectionately as she passed him.