"There is an inconsistency in the documents." The historian said to Angie Florrick. "It was common at the time. People would change their name, or they didn't get a SSN."

The professor laid the documents on the table, Angie and Ramona looked at them. They were in the history department of the University of Chicago

"Your great grandmother in her death certificate and in your grandfather birth certificate is named 'Grace Florrick' but in her wedding certificate her name is 'Gretchen'. We tracked her and we found her birth certificate. Her birth name was 'Gretchen Kowalczyk', she unofficially changed it over time." The professor continued. "But she was from a Polish family, her parents got here in 1902 and worked in the steel mills."

Angie admired the family tree that the professor presented. "Thank you very much."

"You're welcome. I love this stuff."

All the way back to the apartment, Angie held the black notebook closed to her chest. She had her family history with her. Ramona thought it was cute.

"I don't think I'll show this to Grace. Unless she ask me." The teenager said. "I don't know if she cares, but I also think its weird she was named after our great grandma, and her name wasn't even 'Grace'."

"It's your call, sweetie."

"Thank you for helping me with this mom. I feel like I got my own episode of 'Finding your roots'. Minus the famous cousin they always reveal at the end of the show."

"We should go to Oslo." Ramona suggested. "I still have cousins there. Its lovely in the summer."

"Oh I would love that!" Angie eyes got wide. "Do you speak Norwegian?"

"Selvfølgelig snakker jeg norsk, det er mitt morsmål." Ramona said. "Men aksenten min er så."

Angie laughed. "I have no idea what you just said."

"I can teach you. It's not that hard."

"Sounds hard." Angie sighed.

"Let's start with something simple: mor og datter." She pointed at herself and then at Angie.

"Mom and daughter?"

"Yes, see, you're gonna pick it up quickly."

At her house in Highland Park; Grace was laying on her bed, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the next day. She had her appointment with her therapist, the first one after a long break.

"I think we should have another baby." Grace abruptly told her husband.

"Well, that's brave of you. Double down on being a mom when you're still figuring it out." Connor put down the book he was reading.

"Nobody figures it out 100%." Grace sat up and face her husband. "I know I don't want Debbie to be an only child. We both have siblings, we know it's a good experience."

"Sure."

"We have the space, we have the money."

"We don't have too much free time."

"We can make time." the lawyer said. "I can't wait too much longer if I want to be pregnant again, and I don't want a big gap between our children. Debbie is going to be 1 year old next month."

"Sounds like we have a plan. Do we start trying now?" He gave her lascivious look.

"Oh yeah."

"Good to have you back, Grace." Doctor Anderson welcomed the lawyer to her office.

"Thank you. I had to take a break." Grace said as she sat down on the couch. "Work stuff."

"I'm aware." The doctor smiled to her patient. "So...do you want to pick it up from where we were? Or do you have something else in mind?"

"I have to address my relationship with my mother." Grace said without much conviction.

"Hmm." Doctor Anderson got her pad and pen ready. "Go ahead. Tell me about her."

"It's hard for me to talk about her." Grace said.

"The relationship mother-child is a very complex one. For most humans, our mother is the first interaction we have, the first person we see, we imitate her, we follow her, the mother is the first provider of food, protection and affection, the person who informs the world to us." The therapist explained. "A lot of that stays with us for life, good or bad."

"Debbie raises her left eyebrow because I raise my right eyebrow, she mirrors me when I do it." Grace said. "Funny enough, my mom raises her left eyebrow too."

"Tell me about your mom, Grace. Wherever you wanna start."

"My mom..." Grace smiled thinking about her mom. She remembered the nights Alicia tucked her in bed and read her 'Heidi', she remembered Alicia comforting her when she fall off her bike. She remembered seeing Alicia in court for the first time and being in awe of her kick ass mom. "My mom is an amazing woman, she is the best. She's awesome. She's a great lawyer and she's overcome a lot of obstacles. And I love her very much."

"And how is your relationship with her?"

"It's...polite." Grace told the therapist. "I call her on mother's day and on her birthday. She calls me on my birthday and on Christmas."

"So you grown apart?"

"We did because...we..." The lawyer started to fidget with her jewelry. "I have this feeling, this idea in my head for a long time now."

Grace took a moment before saying it out loud.

"My mother resents me. Something in the way she talks to me, they way she acts with me, her decisions about me. Maybe it's subconscious, but it's there and I can feel it like a knife in my heart hurting me for years and I don't know how to make it go away. So I rather not be near my mom."

"Why do you think she resents you?"

"She…" Grace thought about it. "I was never her favorite, I knew early on. She liked Zach better, he didn't get sick as much as I did, Zach didn't need a tutor to help him in school like I did. The firstborn and all that. But at some point the differences felt like in was on purpose. Like throwing a farewell party for Zach and nothing for me."

"So you weren't treating equally?"

"Exactly, but then I asked myself why?" Grace said. "One St. Patrick's Day we were in a bar with my grandmother, my mom's mom, and she told Zach and I that my mom was pregnant when she got married and she hid it from us. Which by the way, who lies about their kids about their wedding anniversary to hide a shotgun wedding? Anyway, grandma also said that when my mom was pregnant with me, she was having issues with her marriage, she considered leaving dad but she stayed because of me."

"That's a cruel thing to said to a kid."

"Grandma Veronica is like that, I'm sure that affected my mom." Grace told the therapist. "Anyway, I knew grandma would exaggerate things sometimes, so I asked my mom about it. Mom was very clear about it: It was for love, not for the responsibility. At the time, that was enough for me to move on. My mom didn't hate me, and I'm not the reason she didn't get a divorce earlier. Then...things changed."

"Change how?"

"I don't know the full story, which its part of my frustration." Grace hid her face in her hands for a moment, then she sighed and looked at her therapist "It's complicated and I don't want to just whine about it"

"Just tell me about it. In your own words."

"My mom was in love with my dad and he turned out to be...let's say a disappointing husband, okay?"

"Okay."

"Then she fell in love with another guy. But he died, and my mom never looked at me the same. As if it was my fault, as if weren't for me she would've divorced dad, married Will and be happy forever after. I was the obstacle between her and happiness. Because I was her responsibility."

"She told you this?"

"No, she never said it explicitly, but...okay, for example the afternoon her boyfriend died, (I'm not calling Will her lover) my mom picked me up from school. At the time, that was unusual, either Zach would drive home or my dad would send a driver. I knew something was wrong right away, she wasn't smiling, she didn't say hello. She ran to hug me, she whispered that Will was dead and started to cry. But my mother wasn't looking for comfort, because God knows I tried to comfort her many times and it never worked, no, my mother was looking for confirmation. Almost like she wanted to see me and make sure I was worth it."

"Your mom reject your comforting?"

"She started an argument with me, weather heaven and the afterlife were real or not. She told me it was all wishful thinking; and I get it, 'thoughts and prayers' sounds like bullshit if you're in pain but also, couldn't she tell I was sincere? I told her I wanted her to be happy. And I did want her to be happy with all my heart." Grace said. "My mom put on a brave face for a few days, then she fell apart. We got home from school and we found mom in her bed, she barely talked, she barely eat. She spend 3 days in her room crying and sleeping. I didn't know what to do, I tried to cover for her at work. I called her office and said mom had the flu."

"Hmm." Doctor Anderson wrote a note.

"My brother was still living with us. But he was preoccupied with leaving for college. I guess that was when he started to distance himself from the family problems. He cared about mom, but he didn't want to intervene."

"And you did?"

"I wanted to help her, do something. I tried to feed her, to cheer her up. I skipped school to make sure she wasn't alone in the house." Grace said. "Then my dad showed up at the apartment...no, it wasn't someone else... Finn?...a coworker got her out of bed. I think he needed help with a case. By the time dad talk to her, she was angry. I remember being in my room, with my ear against the door, trying to hear what my parents were arguing about. Then my dad left, my mom slammed the door and the next day she was up and about like nothing had happened, pretending everything was okay."

"How did you feel about that?"

"I felt frustrated, I wanted her to talk to me. Said something to me. What was that? Is that how it feels when you lose someone? Are you depressed? Are you going to stop drinking?" Grace continued.

"You mentioned your mother drinking before."

"Both my parents enjoyed drinking, they always had a glass of wine now and then, a couple of beers in a party, a cocktail after a long day. It was normal." Grace said to her therapist. "My mother increased her drinking after dad's 1rst arrest. Just a little, but enough that I noticed it. You know? Like it was 2 glasses of wine instead of just one. But she was in control. She still went to work, take care of us. After dad got elected as governor and mom got her own law firm, she moved on to one or two cocktails a night. Still understandable, a lot of stress and all that. And then, her boyfriend dies and mom doubles down on her drink, again, I thought she will eventually get better but she didn't. She launched into a campaign she didn't want; it made her drinking worse. After her emails leaked, she had to step down; she started working from home and I guess that was an excuse to drink all day, she didn't have to wake up early. She would skipped meals, she lost a lot of weight."

"Did she drink in front of you?"

"Sometimes she didn't care, sometimes she would hide in her room, I could hear her crying and I knew she was drinking. Her room would stink the next morning." Grace felt the same sadness all over again. "I wanted to help her but I didn't know how."

"Help her stop drinking?"

"Help her stop being sad." Grace replied. "I became more eager to be her friend, to please her, more eager to get her approval, help her new law firm, whatever. Mom was working from home and I became her assistant, she eventually fired me because I had to focus on school, I asked her directly: 'Do you wanna get rid of me?'. She said no, of course. But a few months later she was literally dragging me out of court to put me on a plane and sending me 1,800 miles away."

"That's when you started drinking?" The therapist asked her.

"Yeah, I started to drink when I was in Berkeley. When I was alone." The lawyer didn't like to talk about those months. "I met a rich kid, he had his own apartment near campus, a bunch of freshmen would get drunk there. It was so easy, you know? You got one drink and you feel a tingle, you got two drinks and you're laughing, 3 drinks and well, you can pretend you're okay." Grace continued. "Let's all pretend."

"So your mother used alcohol to cope and you copy that behavior." The therapist said.

"It was bad and I didn't know what to do but to follow along." Grace said. "I remember this time…

My dad was still running for president, I went out with some friends to the movies, I still had friends then; I got home around 9 pm, right on my curfew. (At the same age, Zach had an 11 pm curfew, by the way.) I opened the door and I stepped on a piece of white china, it was a piece of a plate. I picked it up and recognized it, it was my parents wedding china. There were more pieces on the floor, like someone took the plates and smashed them against the floor. I got worried. "Mom?" I called her out. She's not in her room. "Mom? Are you okay?" I found my mom on the dining table, she was crying, her face hiding in her arms, the whiskey bottle in front of her. She was drunk. The china's cabinet was open, only a few plates remained in their places. I realized my mom broke the rest of them. I don't know what triggered it, but I'm afraid my mom isn't okay.

"Mom, are you okay?" I asked again, she hears me but she doesn't look up.

"I should've chosen you, not him, we would've..." She starts babbling. "I want my chance back, I don't want this..."

I just stood there. I knew exactly what she was talking about, she was talking about Will Gardner.

"I'm sorry mom." It's all I could offer. Then she finally looked at me, her eyes were full of anger, I stepped back.

"You..." She stopped. Her eyes changed, she changed her tone. She wiped away her tears. "Grace, I didn't know you were home."

"What happened?"

"What?" She stood up. "Nothing, don't worry about it."

"I can help you clean up."

"No, no, no, I got it, you go to your room." My mom pulled me closer to her and hugged me, it didn't feel right, it felt forced, just like the day Will Gardner died, she's hugging me to make sure I'm worth it. "Goodnight sweetie."

The very next day we were on bus to Iowa for the caucuses. My mom spent most of the trip wearing sunglasses, I thought it was to hide she was hung over. I kept asking if she was okay. She kept dismissing me. It didn't matter, I was there with my 'Florrick for President' sign cheering for my dad because it was what my family wanted. Dad lost. We went back to Chicago.

"I can see why you feel rejected by your mother."

"It just makes me angry and sad at the same time." Grace said. "I think about these events over and over. What other explanation is there? In the end when mom had to choose between me and random guy she was sleeping with, she chose the fucking guy." Grace said with anger. "Fuck, sorry."

"I can see you're angry." Doctor Anderson said. "But you're not gonna get answers for your mom's behavior or choices here. This is about you letting go that repressed anger. Do you understand?"

"I do...One time I sort of yelled to my mom about it tho."

"You did?"

"It's a long story."

Next chapter: A long story!

Hey, look at us. 20 chapters and we're still here.