I was pretty distracted that night. I know Joanie picked up on it too. She still tried to talk to me like I was acting my normal self but I could tell I was worrying her. I had a feeling if I told her what was going on that she'd worry even more so I didn't bring up the call from Uncle Eli.

"What do you think, James?" she asked, her questioning tone finally breaking through my concerns and distracted thoughts.

I looked up and studied her to see if I was about to be in trouble for not paying attention but she didn't seem upset.

"I'm sorry, Joanie," I said. "I didn't hear you. What do I think about what?"

"You're just in another world tonight, James," she said patting my cheek and smiling. "I said that it seemed like Sherry was avoiding Lou last Sunday at Emma's. I wondered what you made of it."

"I didn't notice anything," I answered. "But it wouldn't surprise me if she was staying clear for a while. Lou's husband is coming home and Sherry's happy for her but she's jealous too probably. I'm sure, knowing Sherry, that she doesn't want those feelings to come out and cause problems. She probably feels guilty for her jealousy. Sherry's a sweet girl but she's as human as the rest of us."

"You're probably right. I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. It's been so hard on Sherry with Billy gone. Maybe I should see what she's doing tomorrow. We could go out and get some lunch or I could just go over and sit for a while and help her with the baby."

There was a strange tone in Joanie's voice when she said the word 'baby' and I waited for the rest of what she had to say.

"She never calls me to come and help with him. I think she feels guilty about him sometimes. She shouldn't. We can try again, and soon I'll have a baby too and everything will be just fine." I could see the defiance flashing in her eyes before it softened to a wistful longing and she added, "I should start practicing taking care of a little one anyway. I hate that she feels we can't be as close because of the miscarriages."

I didn't want to have this talk right then. I didn't want to have it at all. But she teed it up so well for me that I had to take the swing.

"Joanie, honey…I need to talk to you about something."

"James…you look so serious. What is it? What's wrong?"

"Honey, we need to talk about you getting pregnant again," I said and as tense as I was about her response, it was really a relief to have this out in the open.

"I don't understand, my love."

Her eyes were huge and fear-filled. I knew she understood exactly what I was driving at but she was making me come out and say it.

"I'm not sure we should keep trying," I exhaled in a rush. "I don't think it's good for you. I see a little piece of you die with each loss and I don't know if you could take any more of them. I know I can't. I just love you too much to see you hurt like that. We could adopt, Joanie. There are babies out there with no one to love them. Think of how much love we could shower on one of those poor little ones."

"Oh James," she looked up at me through the tears just beginning to trickle down her cheeks.

"Joanie…Joanie…please listen to me," I begged her.

"I'm sorry. I've failed you."

"No you haven't."

"I have. Why did you marry me anyway?" she wailed as her tears fell in earnest. "I am so…I'm not nearly enough for you!"

"Look at me," I demanded taking hold of her shoulders and making her face me. "You are…you are more than enough. You are everything to me. I won't lie. I've let myself dream of the two of us raising our baby. Playing catch with my boy or sitting at ballet recitals watching a curly haired little girl with your big brown eyes twirling around. But…not at the cost of losing you. I don't care whose eyes our child has. I don't even really care if we have a child. I care about growing old with the woman whose faith in me has made me more than I ever dreamed I could be. I need you, Joanie. I need you whole and happy. I need you with me for the rest of our days."

"James," she whispered. "I…I…I'm not sure I can be whole and healthy without a child. Adoption is still an option…I'm just not ready to give up on my body. I'm not ready to give up on someday watching a boy with your golden eyes reading from the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah. I can't yet. I'm sorry but I just can't let go of him yet. Please, James…please let me try again."

I nodded. I couldn't look into those huge, pleading eyes and say no to her. She knew it too.

"We'll try again," I said. "I'm not sure why you stick with me. I don't know if I'm strong enough to keep seeing you hurt."

"That's not weakness, James. That's love. How could I not stick with someone who loves me so much as to feel my pain?"

Well, what could I do after that but kiss her? When the kiss ended she smiled up at me.

"If you pop some corn, I'll make us root beer floats," she said as if we hadn't just had a monumental talk. "It's almost time for Star Trek."

Well, that night was about as perfect as it could get. I spent it snuggled up on the couch with my girl sipping root beer floats and nibbling popcorn while watching the voyagers of the starship Enterprise explore strange new worlds.

Of course the thought of lunch the next day never truly left my mind. I wasn't sure what was so important for Mr. Cohen and Uncle Eli to call me at work and have me come meet them. It was good Joanie was planning on spending time with Sherry the next day so I wouldn't have to tell her until I knew what was going on.

The next day I kissed Joanie as she went out the door to go and visit Sherry. I told her to have a good time and give Sherry my love. Joanie looked lighter then. I think she needed the talk we had as much as I did. I wish I could say I was feeling more relaxed but I was sort of worried about the lunch I had to get to.

Once Joanie was gone, I got into the car and headed for Bloomfield Hills. For as many times as I had been to the country club, I never really felt like I belonged there. No matter what I did, I just felt like I didn't fit. I mean, I had a Master's degree by then and a good job and was Jewish like all the others there and I was even married to a high powered lawyer who was earning respect on her own and not just for who her father was. But I still felt like they were going to put me to work parking cars or washing dishes.

I went in and was shown to a table off to a far corner of the dining area. That, in and of itself, didn't bode well. But I pasted a smile on my face and offered my hand for the other two men to shake. The way we were seated didn't escape my notice either. I was put in a chair closest the wall. I'll admit that most times I like it that way. I like seeing what's coming and having a good view of wherever I am. I know now that's some kind of PTSD reaction and probably from all the times I didn't see the punch coming from one of my folks.

But this was different. Seeing the restaurant wasn't comforting. What I realized was that I was penned in, and deliberately so, by these two men. They had me cornered. That wasn't like them but neither was any of this.

I had wracked my brain on the drive out to think of what they could want. I thought maybe Judy was having trouble and they needed me to intercede again. Or maybe there was a case Joanie was handling that I needed a heads up about. I thought maybe they even wanted to talk about the ramifications of Kid coming home. But cornering me the way they did, I knew they had something much more serious than even those things to talk about. It made me agitated like I can't describe. I started to worry that one of them was sick, maybe even dying. Something really bad like that.

I barely got hellos out before the waiter was there to take our orders. I knew the menu well enough to not need to look at one. And I ordered a martini as well. Something told me I was going to need a stiff drink for whatever I was facing. We made small talk until the food came and then things got quiet for a while. I was just about to speak up when Uncle Eli beat me to it.

"You've been very patient, James," he began. "But I'm sure you're wondering why you're here."

"Now that you mention it," I replied conjuring a smile.

Eli looked over at Mr. Cohen who cleared his throat. He had been strangely silent the entire time I'd been there. Even when I asked how Judy was doing in school, he hadn't answered and I'd had to look to Uncle Eli for an answer.

I turned my head to face my father-in-law and found him searching for the right words to say.

"There's no gentle way to say this, James," he said after taking a deep breath. "Joanie is not as strong as she likes to think. I know you know this. She might not know it, but she's had enough. I can see it. If you are honest, you can too. We all love her. I know you know that I have a great trust in you. You must talk her out of trying to become pregnant again. She can't handle another loss. We can't handle it either."

My brow furrowed in a scowl. It was one thing for me to bring this concern to her. That was the heart of a marriage, being honest about our feelings. But for these men who purport to love her to go behind her back…I was growing angry. I could see it now. I was brought to a place they knew I had never felt comfortable and there they were bullying me to make the decisions in my marriage that they wanted. I was against the wall for a reason. I was on their turf for a reason. I realized Uncle Eli was speaking and I struggled to hear his words.

"You must understand, James, that we have known little zeisele for much longer than you have. We know when she is at her breaking point. You do not always see these things in her. She wants to please you. She will keep putting herself in this horrible position until she feels she has given you what you want. It is perhaps time to make it clear that you want her healthy."

I looked between the men who had once been the most important in Joanie's world. I knew they had been replaced and that had to have been a difficult pill for them to swallow. But I was in that role now. I narrowed my eyes even as I fought to calm myself and speak evenly.

"Jacob…Eli," I began fighting against the quivering anger my voice held. I could see my words had an immediate impact. I took a breath before continuing. "I have nothing but respect for the both of you. I mean that. I try every day to live up to the example you set for Joanie and her expectations of a real man and how one acts." My jaw clenched and I tried to breathe. "But this is none of your business."

Whatever attempt I was making to control my anger was probably lost in the way I growled that. I could see Eli working to find a response but I wasn't about to give him that chance.

"We've talked. That conversation is none of your business either," I paused trying to collect my thoughts. "I thought that after all this time...I thought...Hell, it doesn't matter what I thought. We're married. What happens inside that is none of your damned business. I will take care of Joanie. I will do what needs doing for her. I know you love her but...but you seem to forget that I love her too, and she loves me. We'll handle things the way we think they should be handled and when we need your opinion, we'll ask for it."

I could see the men trying to think of something to say. Lawyers are taught never to ask questions they don't know the answer to. I surprised them. I reacted differently than they thought I would. I'm proud of that little feat to this day.

I wasn't about to stick around and let them argue with me. For one thing, there wasn't an argument to be had. For another, if I let them start talking, they'd likely turn my head all around. I stood abruptly and began to walk away.

"James," Eli began as he put a hand on my arm. I shook it off roughly. Probably a lot more roughly than I needed to with a man his age. He looked a little scared of me. In another time and place that would have made me feel bad but it didn't then. It still doesn't.

"I'm not sitting still for any more of this," I said trying to keep the growl out of my voice while keeping it low enough to not draw too much attention. I looked between both of them, glaring as I did and then turned. I walked out with my head high and my hands clenched.

I got home and I can honestly say I don't even remember the drive from Bloomfield. The nerve of them! Thinking I couldn't take care of my own wife! And blaming me for her wanting to keep trying. I was the one terrified of the prospect of being a father...The only thing I can tell you about the drive was that by the time I got home, I was easily twice as mad as when I'd set out.

Joanie still wasn't home from spending time with Sherry when I got there and I was grateful. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to have even contemplated if telling her about this was the right thing and I was too mad to be anywhere near her right then.

I didn't even go inside the house. The last thing I thought I could stand was walls around me. I stood in the doorway of the garage and my eyes hit on the bike. I hadn't taken it out in a few weeks. It was November after all and colder than a witch's thorax out. If I recall that day correctly, there were even some light snow flurries. We weren't getting what you'd call accumulation or anything but little wispy patches that would stay on the ground and get blown around by the wind.

But nothing else made sense right then. I grabbed a sweatshirt I had in the garage for when it got chilly in the evenings and I was working on one of the cars and pulled my leather jacket on over that. I grabbed the black leather gloves Joanie had bought me when she got me the bike and helmeted up before walking the bike out of the garage.

I slung my leg over the bike and fired her up and headed out. I didn't know or care where I was going. I just drove. Once I cleared the city, I could take the speed up a notch or two and that felt almost good.

The wind hitting my mouth and chin under the visor of the helmet was so cold and I was getting pelted with snowflakes. I kept having to wipe off the visor too. But as I rode, Jacob and Eli and their words and the way they'd treated me that day sort of flew off in the wind.

Hell, they weren't the first to think I wasn't good enough for one thing or another. I'd doubted plenty through the years if I really deserved Joanie but...it was how they did it. It was the fact that they'd always supported me before and I guess I felt more betrayed than anything else. Doesn't matter how old you get or how much you accomplish, you never get past needing to feel accepted. I'd come to respect the men they were and it meant a lot to have their approval.

But as I rode through the icy wind and slowly lost feeling in my face and legs, I realized there were more important things than if Jacob or Eli thought I was a good husband. The wind carried their words and serious faces off into the sky and left only Joanie.

Joanie was all that mattered. If I could take care of her, keep her safe and happy, keep being on the receiving end of her smiles and hugs and kisses...and anything else she cared to offer...If I could do that, then absolutely nothing else could matter.

I stopped the bike at some little gas station and pried my frozen body off the seat. I told the attendant to fill her up and headed for the building. Stepping inside, I found I could grab a cup of coffee and I did. It felt good.

I stood for a few minutes inside the gas station warming my hands on the paper coffee cup while letting the hot liquid warm the rest of me too. Jacob and Eli were gone from my thoughts. I knew Joanie was spending time with her best friend that day and Lou was preparing to welcome her husband home in the coming weeks. I knew Rachel was about to bring someone new into the world for us all to love and protect and I knew that all in all, my life was pretty good. I was young and healthy and married to a woman...well, I couldn't even call her the woman of my dreams because I'd never dared to dream of anyone quite like her. But there she was and she was mine.

I smiled as I thanked the attendant and paid him for the gas and coffee and headed out to drive home. I took a more leisurely pace heading back than I did on the way out. By the time I pulled into the driveway, it was getting dark. Joanie's car was in the driveway and the lights from the windows of our living room were casting a warm glow into the encroaching night.

I turned off the engine and closed my eyes a moment smiling. I felt warm and happy and I took a moment to bask in that happiness. Things might not be perfect but they were damned good.

I wheeled the bike into the garage with no thought in my mind other than to hug my wife tight and maybe cuddle on the couch with her and see if anything good was on the tube.

So now we know what Eli and Jacob wanted. I know that was really uncomfortable for Jimmy but I think he handled it well.

Once again, I must thank Beulah profusely! She really helped me out on this...I was such a mess and so all over the place but she made sense of it all.

So...100 chapters...I'm not even sure what to think about that. I know that this story wasn't meant to be this when I began the tale. I'm not sure if this is what I should have done but now I'm too far gone to do anything else. I'm a little afraid of this now, to tell the truth. I guess just let me know what you think.-J