Chapter Text
By the time Constance rang the bell, Jane had been inside for less than five minutes and Maura had forgiven her for at least three of them.
Jane had arrived carrying a white pastry box and none of the urgency appropriate for someone who was nearly an hour late. Maura had been telling Angela that her mother was famous for her dinner parties, moving around the kitchen as though each plate required one final adjustment before it could survive inspection.
“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” Angela said
“Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly live up to her.” Maura glanced toward the dining room, where the table had been ready long enough for Angela to threaten to rearrange it out of boredom. “She’ll spot takeout in a second.”
“Stop worrying. You’re the perfect daughter.” The Rizzoli matriarch said softly before admonishing Jane. “And you’re late.”
Jane opened the box. “Cannoli.”
“We already have dessert.”
“Cannoli aren’t sophisticated.”
“Well, neither are we.” Jane’s expression softened. “I got them for you.”
“You got them for me? You’re the perfect daughter,” Angela said, kissing her daughter’s cheek.
The doorbell rang before Maura could comment.
For a moment, she stayed where she was. Jane watched her smooth both hands over the dress she had changed into after work, then glanced toward the dining room as though the table might have fallen apart during their conversation.
“Don’t worry,” Jane said. “You look beautiful.”
She said it without teasing, which made it harder for Maura to dismiss. Their eyes held for a second before Maura nodded and went to answer the door.
Constance had expected the house to be beautiful. Maura had always responded to uncertainty by arranging everything within reach, and adulthood appeared to have given her more rooms in which to practice. The flowers were fresh, the table carefully set and the air carried several distinct aromas she could not identify before her daughter began apologizing for dinner being a few minutes behind schedule.
“You look well,” Constance told her.
“Thank you.”
Maura kissed her cheek and stepped aside. The careful smile she wore was familiar to Constance, though she remembered it belonging to a much younger face.
The kitchen beyond the entryway was warmer and louder than she had anticipated. Angela Rizzoli stood beside the stove as comfortably as if it were her own, while her daughter attempted to hide the stain on her shirt by folding one arm across her chest.
Behind Maura, Jane leaned toward her mother.
“Country mice, meet city mice,” she murmured, too quietly for Constance to make out.
Angela heard her perfectly. “Oh, my God. She’s gorgeous.” Then she turned to Jane and frowned. “Stand up straight.”
The introduction that followed was less formal than Maura had intended, although Constance suspected that was true of most things involving the Rizzolis. Angela welcomed her with immediate warmth. Jane was more restrained, studying Constance with the open curiosity of someone who had already heard enough about her to have formed an opinion and was waiting to see whether it needed revising.
Nothing about either woman suggested they were guests. Angela knew where Maura kept the serving utensils and ignored Maura’s attempt to take them from her. Jane reached for the bottle of wine before Maura asked and poured into her glass without looking to see which one belonged to her.
Constance had spent much of her life training her eye to follow the lines within a composition. That evening, it kept leading her back to her daughter and Jane.
Over dinner, Constance told them about the lecture she would be giving in Stockholm on the objectification of the female form in postwar modernism. Angela leaned forward with sincere interest.
“I find that fascinating.”
Jane gave her a skeptical look. “What do you know about postwar modernism?”
Angela did not hesitate. “I know plenty about the objectification of the female form.”
Jane considered that. “Good point.”
“Elbows off the table.”
“What?” Jane straightened, offended. “I thought I was perfect.”
Maura laughed before she could stop herself. Jane looked across the table at her, and the laughter remained in Maura’s face even after she lowered her eyes toward her plate.
Constance remembered her daughter laughing as a child, although she could not remember having heard it often enough. With Jane, it seemed to arrive easily.
“Did I tell you your father is joining me in Zagreb?” Constance asked. “There’s a German Expressionist festival—”
“That’s great,” Jane interrupted. Her tone remained friendly, but something sharper moved underneath it. “Nice that you found time in your busy schedule to come to Boston and visit your daughter.”
“Jane,” Maura said quietly.
Constance looked between them. “Well, I’m actually here for an installation opening.”
The answer seemed ordinary until Maura’s expression changed.
“Oh.”
The word escaped before she could make it polite. Maura recovered quickly, lowering her eyes and reaching for her wine, though she did not drink from it. Across the table, Jane stopped moving altogether.
Constance had assumed Maura understood why she was in Boston. Perhaps she had mentioned the opening without explaining that it was the reason for the trip. The distinction had seemed insignificant until she saw Jane watching her daughter absorb it.
“What are you installing?” Angela asked.
Constance hesitated, unsure whether the question was sincere.
“The modern art installation Maura told you about,” Jane explained.
Maura had told Jane. Of course she had. Constance wondered how long her daughter had been discussing the visit with her, how much Jane already knew about the guesthouse and the dinner and every hope Maura had been too careful to express in front of her mother.
“Let’s have dessert,” Maura said.
She rose before anyone could return to the subject and disappeared into the kitchen. Jane watched her go, irritation tightening her mouth, but allowed her the escape. When Maura returned carrying the poire belle Hélène, Jane had opened the pastry box and moved it into the center of the table.
“I made your favorite,” Maura told Constance as she placed the dessert in front of her. “Poir belle Hélene”
The pears had been prepared with the same attention as everything else in the house. Constance looked at them and understood, a little too late, how much of the evening had been built around a visit she had treated as incidental.
Jane pushed the cannoli toward her. “You should try one of these too. They’re my ma’s favorite.”
Angela smiled, pleased to have been included. Maura glanced at Jane and did the same.
The moment passed. Angela resumed telling Constance about the neighborhood, Jane disputed several parts of her account and Maura quietly corrected them both. The conversation found its earlier warmth again, although Constance became increasingly aware of Jane checking Maura’s expression whenever the subject threatened to return to her visit.
By the time the plates had been cleared, the flight had begun to catch up with Constance. She released a tired breath and apologized in the language that came most naturally.
“Je m’excuse, mais je suis très fatiguée.”
“She says she’s sorry,” Maura began.
“She’s tired,” Jane finished.
Maura turned toward her with a small smile. “I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“I read body language.”
Jane delivered the excuse with complete seriousness, though the faint color rising along her neck weakened the performance. Maura’s face opened into something so openly delighted that Constance almost felt she had intruded upon it.
It was only a sentence. Jane had revealed a small ability she preferred to keep hidden, and Maura looked as though she had been handed a gift. That made Jane keep her eyes lowered toward her plate, but Maura continued smiling, unconvinced by the excuse and charmed by Jane’s determination to maintain it.
Constance had spent the evening noticing how quickly Jane understood her daughter. Until that moment, she had paid less attention to how much Maura enjoyed discovering Jane.
The possibility occurred to her quietly.
“It was lovely to meet you both,” Constance said.
“You too,” Jane replied.
Maura rose with her. The smile Jane had caused followed her for a few steps before she realized Constance was preparing to leave.
“I thought you were staying,” she said. “I prepared the guesthouse for you.”
Her voice caught slightly on the first word. Constance remembered the guesthouse only then: the fresh sheets, the flowers Maura had almost certainly placed there, the breakfast she had probably already planned.
“Darling, didn’t I mention that the gallery arranged for me to stay at the Ritz? I’ve already checked in.”
For a moment, Maura seemed to forget what expression she was supposed to make. Then everything returned to its proper place in a controlled smiled.
“Of course.”
Jane’s attention shifted entirely toward her.
“But I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” Constance continued. “You’ll be my date for the welcoming dinner.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“And please come to the opening. I’ll just call the gallery and have them put you on the list.”
“The list?” Jane repeated.
The words carried enough disbelief that Maura answered before Constance could.
“Yeah, sure.”
Constance kissed her daughter goodbye and left with a soft bonsoir. As Maura closed the door, Constance caught one last glimpse of Jane rising from the table.
The car waiting outside was warm. Constance gave the driver the name of the hotel and settled into the back seat. Through the window, she could still see the light from Maura’s kitchen.
She had seen her daughter’s disappointment at the table. Jane had seen it first.
Still, the image Constance carried with her to the Ritz was the way Maura had looked at Jane after discovering she understood French. Intimacy often revealed itself through details too instinctive to arrange, and Maura had looked at Jane as though every new thing she learned about her mattered.
Inside the house, Angela waited only a few seconds before releasing a long breath.
“Wow. She is so put together.”
Maura began gathering the dessert plates. “She’s hard to get to know.”
“Well, I think I got a pretty good idea.”
Angela turned toward the kitchen with the dishes and soon began handling the pots with enough force to make Jane wince.
“Ma, really? Cincinnati can hear you.”
Jane stayed beside Maura, who was still looking at the closed door.
“See, you could have that for a mother,” Jane said. “Nosy and loud.”
“And warm,” Maura answered. “Involved.”
The complaint faded from Jane’s face. “Grass is always greener.”
They sat again while Angela continued expressing her opinion through cookware. Jane admitted that she used to dream she had been adopted and that her imaginary mother was chic, glamorous and educated. Maura confessed that she had spent her childhood wondering what it would be like to have a mother who cut the crusts from her sandwiches.
“Annoying,” Jane assured her.
Maura smiled. Some of the hurt remained, though Jane had made room around it for something gentler.
Her phone rang before either of them could say more. Jane answered, listened and reached for her jacket.
“Come on. We’ve got another shooting.”
Maura stood without hesitation and followed her.
Constance forgot the list.
She remembered Maura while inspecting the lighting for the central piece, while answering a journalist’s questions and while standing beside the curator as he described the installation using language she would never have chosen herself. She remembered that her daughter had liked milkshakes as a child and had refused to wear anything with lace for nearly an entire year. More than once, she remembered the expression on Maura’s face when Jane completed the translation at dinner.
She remembered everything except the list.
By the time Maura arrived, escorted beyond the entrance by Jane’s badge and visible irritation, Constance had found three different ways to explain the oversight to herself. The gallery was responsible for the names. Her assistant had misunderstood. The opening had required more attention than anticipated. But as much as she thought about it, she knew none of those explanations would survive Jane’s expression.
“You made it,” Constance said.
“Sorry we had to crash,” Jane replied. “Your daughter wasn’t on the list,” she added.
Constance apologized. Maura immediately drew her attention toward the installation, praising its wit and pathos with an eagerness that made the oversight feel worse. Jane stayed beside her, close enough that their sleeves touched whenever Maura turned.
Jane regarded the hanging water bottles with suspicion before asking Maura to bring them something to drink. Maura looked between them, clearly unconvinced that Jane had developed an urgent interest in getting to know Constance, but she went.
Jane waited until she was out of hearing range.
“I love them,” she announced. “They make me feel guilty, and I’ll never buy water again.”
The effort was so plainly for Maura’s benefit that Constance smiled.
“I can see why Maura likes you. You’re direct. It’s refreshing.”
“I’m protective.” Jane glanced toward Maura. “She’s my best friend.”
The phrase seemed too small for the way Jane said it. It resembled a label written before the work was finished: technically accurate and already incomplete.
“I sense there’s something you’d like to say to me,” Constance said.
“I don’t like seeing her hurt.”
“You think I hurt her?”
“You didn’t stay with her. You canceled dinner. Then you forgot to put her on the list for your own installation.” Jane kept her voice low, although that did little to soften it. “Yeah. I think that hurts her.”
Constance’s first impulse was to defend herself. Maura had her own life, an important career and, for the moment, a case that had occupied most of Boston’s attention. She had always been independent. Constance had spent years telling herself that independence meant her daughter had outgrown the need for anything more from her.
Jane listened until she had finished.
“She keeps making excuses for you,” she said. “That’s what Maura does. She finds an explanation that makes everything hurt less.”
The familiarity behind the statement silenced Constance. Jane knew how Maura concealed disappointment because she had stayed long enough to learn. She would know the anticipation that came before one of Constance’s visits and the rationalizations that followed after she left.
“I was never very good at it,” Constance admitted.
“At what?”
“Being a mother.” Saying it aloud removed some of the elegance from the sentiment. It sounded plain and inadequate, which was probably closer to the truth. “I feel as though I missed so much.”
Jane’s expression softened. Her anger remained, although it no longer filled all the space between them.
“Then tell her.”
Constance looked toward the bar. Maura was waiting for their drinks and watching them with poorly disguised concern. Jane followed her gaze and gave Maura a quick smile. The tension left Maura’s shoulders.
Constance wondered how many times Jane had done that without realizing.
The question left her before she could decide whether it was appropriate.
“How long have you and Maura been together?”
Jane turned back so quickly that Constance almost laughed.
“What?”
“I thought perhaps that was why she invited you to dinner.”
“No. No, we’re not—” Jane stopped and looked toward Maura again before lowering her voice. “We’re not together.”
“I see.”
“We’re friends.”
“Yes. You mentioned that.”
“Best friends.”
Jane appeared more alarmed by the question than offended by it. Constance had expected an immediate correction or perhaps some embarrassment. Jane looked as though someone had opened a door behind her and she was afraid to turn around.
Before Constance could ask anything else, the gallery coordinator approached to remind her that the patrons were waiting for her speech. Jane’s phone rang almost simultaneously. The case demanded her attention, ending the conversation with an efficiency neither of them could have arranged.
Jane crossed the room to Maura and explained that they had to leave. Maura apologized to Constance twice while Jane guided her toward the exit with a hand resting briefly at the small of her back.
Constance watched until the crowd concealed them.
She had been wrong about the dinner. Maura had not brought Jane because there was something she intended to announce. Jane had been there because Jane was always there, and neither of them appeared to understand that this was considerably more revealing.
Constance returned to the Dirty Robber before leaving Boston because she had forgotten to say goodbye. Well, at least, that was the explanation she gave Maura.
Maura looked at her as though she might disappear again if left unobserved. Constance sat beside her, accepted a menu and remained long enough to order the greasiest hamburger she had eaten in years.
The table was crowded and loud. Angela commented on Korsak’s diet. Korsak defended himself between visible waves of indigestion. Jane interrupted whenever the conversation between Maura and Constance became too careful, offering jokes that Maura then had to explain.
When Constance mentioned that she had always loved milkshakes, Maura’s surprise was impossible to hide.
“I didn’t know that.”
The confession carried more weight than a preference for ice cream deserved. Constance could hear all the other things her daughter had never been given the chance to learn.
“Strawberry,” she decided.
Maura ordered one too.
Jane announced that she wanted a beer. When Constance asked whether Boston bars regularly served beer milkshakes, Jane agreed with a perfectly straight face. Maura rushed to explain the joke at the same moment Angela did.
Constance laughed. So did Angela.
“I can certainly see the family resemblance,” Angela said, looking between Maura and her mother.
Constance turned toward Jane. “I can see it too. The two of you are very much alike.”
Angela appeared delighted; her daughter was less convinced.
Jane and Maura noticed the look passing between their mothers at the same moment.
“What is it?” they asked together.
“Nothing,” Angela and Constance replied, equally in unison.
Maura narrowed her eyes. Jane reached for the peanuts and offered her some without looking. Maura accepted them just as automatically.
Constance took another sip of her milkshake and kept her observations to herself.
For now.
Jane received the message the following afternoon while arguing with Frost over whose turn it was to finish the reports.
Unsaved Number: Thank you for speaking plainly.
She stared at the unfamiliar number until another message appeared.
Unsaved Number: This is Constance Isles. Maura gave me your number.
Jane turned as if to look for Maura, even if she knew she was several floors below and could not possibly help her.
Detective Rizzoli: I wasn’t trying to be rude
The reply arrived as Jane added the number to her phone.
Constance Isles (Be Nice): I believe you were. You were also right.
Jane smiled despite herself. Frost asked what was funny, and she told him to mind his own business.
A final message appeared before she could put the phone away.
Constance Isles (Be Nice): Take care of her for me.
The request irritated Jane in a way she could not explain. Maura did not need to be assigned to her, and Constance had no reason to assume Jane required the reminder.
Her answer came before any of that reasoning had finished forming.
Detective Rizzoli: I already do.
Jane read the words again after they had been delivered. She considered following them with a joke or some clarification that would make the answer sound less like a promise.
Instead, she placed the phone facedown and returned to her reports.
Later that evening, Maura was putting away the poire belle Hélène no one had eaten when her mother wrote to her.
Mother: Jane is remarkable.
Maura smiled.
Maura: She can be, although I suspect she wasn’t particularly diplomatic with you.
Constance took a moment to respond.
Mother: Diplomacy was not the quality I had in mind.
Maura stopped beside the open refrigerator.
Maura: Which quality did you mean?
Mother: Her devotion to you.
The word felt excessive. Jane was protective of everyone she loved, and Maura had seen her intervene in situations that required far less concern. There was a reasonable explanation for her behavior at dinner, another for the gallery and several for the fact that she had attended the opening despite claiming to hate modern art.
The open pastry box on the counter complicated the argument.
One cannoli remained. Even if Jane said she had bought them for Angela, Maura knew better, she inspected the pastry as another message arrived.
Mother: Whatever you choose to call it, I’m glad you have her.
Maura read it twice before setting down her phone. She took the cannoli from the box and leaned against the counter, brushing powdered sugar from her thumb after the first bite.
Several possible corrections occurred to her. She could explain that Jane was her best friend, that loyalty was one of Jane’s defining characteristics and that Constance had observed them together for only a few hours.
Maura finished the cannoli while deciding how best to phrase it.
In the end, she never sent the correction.