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Paula Hill took off practically as soon as they’d finished with dessert, making some excuse about an early morning meeting. She and Joe had arrived separately, however, and so despite his mother’s increasingly obvious attempts to get him to leave with her, the eldest Reagan grandchild steadfastly refused, instead settling in to watch the start of the Sunday night game with Sean. It was obvious the news he’d received at dinner was still weighing heavily on him, and yet he was choosing to spend time with his cousin rather than running a hundred miles in the opposite direction to lick his wounds in private.
Eddie didn’t care whose last name he carried. The boy was a Reagan, through and through.
“So, uh,” Jamie began quietly, handing her another plate to dry, “do you think he’s going to be alright?”
She lifted a shoulder in a helpless half-shrug. “All I know is, his life’s about to get turned upside down. All he’s got a say in now is his reaction.” She glanced in the direction of the living room, then looked back at her husband. “Do you think he’s going to be alright?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie replied honestly. “Joe – his dad – wanted to avoid the connection when he started out, too. He had twenty-three years to get used to being a Reagan, and he still didn’t want to be one out on the streets. This time last year, the kid didn’t even know who his father was. I can’t exactly blame him for wanting to be himself out there, instead of a Reagan.”
Eddie nodded once. “Your family does cast some pretty large shadows.”
“And not everybody’s going to want to walk in them.” Jamie looked over at her, then refocused on the task before him, dipping another plate into the hot, soapy water. He scrubbed it methodically, rinsed it thoroughly, and then handed it over for her to dry and add to the growing pile next to her. “I want him to be okay.”
She smiled sympathetically, reaching over to squeeze his soap-covered hand gently. “I know. I do, too.”
-
Later, after all the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, Eddie found herself standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at one of the photographs on the refrigerator. It was an old one, likely taken soon before Mary’s death. If the chubby-cheeked infant cradled in Linda’s arms was anything to go by, it was, in fact, nearly as old as Sean. The entire family was there, all of them smiling and laughing as the camera went off. Eddie smiled at the sight of her husband, early-twenties Jamie, who somehow looked like even more of a Boy Scout than he had when they’d met seven years earlier. A moment later, though, her eyes were drawn to Joe. It wasn’t hard to pick him out. His photograph was in nearly every room of the family home; a copy of that same photograph sat on her mantle at home. Even if she’d never seen him before, though, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to pick him out. He was a replica of his son (or, she guessed, his son was a replica of him), aside from the blond hair he shared with his younger brother and someone had once informed her came from their mother’s side of the family.
In the photograph, Joe was grinning a carefree smile, one arm thrown over Jamie’s shoulders. The other was keeping Jack firmly in place as his elder nephew, then no older than four years old, sat happily atop the detective’s shoulders. He looked so carefree that it was a bit heartbreaking, because Eddie knew so much about what was going to happen to him that he never could’ve seen coming, and she hated that it had ended for him as it had. She hated that Jamie no longer had his favorite brother, and she hated that the boy sitting on a sofa just a room over hadn’t ever had his father.
“That was a good day,” Frank mentioned, startling her from her stupor. He smiled slightly, shaking his head when she began stuttering an apology. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He cleared his throat, then nodded back to the photograph that had been captivating her attention a moment earlier. “None of us were carefree often, back then. Mary wanted us to capture it all. She wanted something for the grandkids. It was important to her.” He smiled as he spoke his wife’s name, the gesture so fond and yet so sad, and in that moment, it was so obvious he was still grieving a wife he’d lost nearly two decades earlier that Eddie had to glance away in order to blink back tears.
“Jamie talks about her sometimes,” Eddie offered quietly. “She seems like she was a good person. I’m sorry I couldn’t meet her.”
“She’d be sorry for that, too.” He hesitated for a moment, then spoke again. “You’ve had some issues with your family in the past.”
“I… have,” she agreed, unsure as to where he was leading.
He shrugged slightly. “Us Reagans, we’re a tight-knit group. We see each other for dinner on Sunday. Every Sunday. Now, I happen to like that we still belong to the small number of families that still get together for dinner once a week, without fail, but I am well aware that isn’t the norm. Joe and Paula, they’re probably right to think it’s a little strange.” He seemed to be struggling again. It was such an incredibly strange look on her father-in-law that Eddie briefly contemplated calling an ambulance. “I guess what I’m trying to say is… I don’t know what it’s like to be part of a family that isn’t exactly the way this family is.”
“Oh.” Eddie blinked, then her lips quirked up slightly. “Well, believe me, being part of a family like this is a thousand times better. But, uh…” She considered the silent question he’d not quite managed to ask. “I honestly don’t have much insight into what Joe’s thinking right now. I’m sorry. But when I first became a curator, a long time before being a cop was even on my radar, people shamed me because I was Armin’s daughter. The thing is, as far as my father and I have come, there’s something to be ashamed of when it comes to him. He screwed over a lot of good, hardworking people, just so he could line his own pockets. There’s nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to you or to Joe. Your son, I mean.” This time, she was the one to hesitated. “But I do know what it’s like to have your entire life turned on its head, to find out so many of the things you took for granted weren’t actually the truth. It takes a while to readapt to the reality of who you are, after that. It took me a while, at least.”
“So, you’re saying to give him time,” her father-in-law surmised, his tone suggesting he’d expected that to be the answer and yet was still slightly disappointed by it.
“Hey, according to Jamie, you and his mom used to tell him all the time that it healed all wounds.”
The police commissioner chuckled at that. “Yes, we did.” He fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. “And for the record, Eddie, we are very glad to have you be part of this family.”
She simply smiled, grateful. “Thank you. I’m glad, too.”
-
“You seem like a smart kid, so I’m sure you know this, but it’s really probably not very good for you to be sitting outside at this time of night, especially when it’s practically below freezing.”
The detective glanced up when she took a seat on the step next to him. “Then why are you sitting out here with me?” he challenged dryly.
“Oh, well, I’m a Reagan,” Eddie answered, rubbing her arms in an attempt to get even the slightest hint of warmth to return to her body. “By marriage, but still. We’re big believers in solidarity, which means I am contractually obligated not to let you sit out here by yourself.”
He blinked. “There’s not actually a contract involved, is there?”
She huffed a laugh. “Other than the marriage certificate that made Jamie’s family my family? No, there isn’t.”
The detective nodded once, slowly, then returned his attention to the street. “I’m not ashamed that I’m his son. I’m not ashamed you’re all my family.”
“Nobody thinks you are,” she told him honestly.
He nodded again. “I still remember the day he died. I didn’t even know who he was, not until the media started bringing up his name every hour, on the hour. Looking back, I think my mom was… off, after the news got out. I knew Grandpa was a friend of the Commission- of Frank’s, though, so I just figured it was because she knew him or had at least met him in passing.” He shook his head. “I had no idea.”
“Well, the really crappy thing about family secrets is that you don’t know about them, not while they’re secrets,” she pointed out logically. “And they really have a bad habit of coming out at the worst times.”
He scoffed disbelievingly. “I have a hard time believing Frank Reagan’s got many skeletons in his closet.”
“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t,” Eddie agreed without hesitation. “But like I said, I am a Reagan by marriage, not by birth. The family I come from, they’ve got plenty of skeletons.”
He still seemed skeptical. “Like what?”
“Well, my father’s a Bernie Madoff wannabe and my older brother was murdered by a student of his he was trying to help get out of a gang,” Eddie replied matter-of-factly, smiling bitterly at the way his eyes widened slightly in response. “Like I said, lots of skeletons.”
“That was… not what I was expecting you to say,” he told her honestly. He nodded back, in the direction of the closed front door. “They all seem pretty perfect.”
“They’ve got their moments,” she assured him. “But when it comes to family, they’re always going to be ready to go down swinging. It’s the first thing I learned about them. And they, we, understand you have your reservations. I had a lot of the same. Like you said, they seem pretty perfect when you come from a family that’s so… not. But you’re family, in their eyes. No matter what happens with that article, even if it ends up being a huge mess, they’re going to have your back. We’re all going to have your back.”
His lips quirked slightly. “Always show up for Sunday dinner?”
“Always show up in general,” she confirmed, patting his shoulder lightly and then pushing herself up. “Now, come on. Let’s get in, kid, before your uncle hunts us down and starts clucking at us for being outside in this weather. He’s such a mother hen, I swear,” she sighed fondly.
Joe actually laughed at that, instead of just smiling, and Eddie found herself relieved to finally have an answer to that question her husband had posed to her earlier in the evening.
Do you think he’s going to be alright?
Yeah, Eddie thought to herself. He’s going to be just fine.