Always There

At the beginning of June, not only was the weather on both coasts incredibly hot, but everyone seemed to be buzzing with something to do. Benjamin turned the ripe old age of eight and Olivia was preparing for her final exams so that she could pass out of the seventh grade.

Her mind was reeling with the excitement of staying with her dad over the summer in California. Granted she was a little sad to leave behind her best friend Crystal and new friend Giselle, and even her mom and brothers, but she'd be in California...for the summer! There'd be beaches! And not the cheesy, Long Island beaches like in the Hamptons or at Jones Beach. West coast sand and sun! And there would be so much to do. She was gonna be able to see the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, go to Old Sacramento, San Francisco's Lombard Street, even Los Angeles and Hollywood. There would even be a week or two that she'd be able to go to San Diego to spend with her grandparents and see her Uncle Catcher and his family.

And, then, before anyone knew it, the summer had arrived.

Seeing her daughter off on the plane all by herself, especially since she'd be gone a little over two months, Maria was definitely starting to 'nest.' Her oldest child had flown the coop for a while and she would be somewhat stir crazy in a house full of testosterone.

Maria was looking forward to a boring summer as usual, filled with tending to her sons, taking them to the beach, cleaning, cooking, maybe laying out in the backyard while the boys played...all while Mitch worked long hours in the city at his firm he co-owned with his two other partners, Steve Griffin and Jonathan Goldman.

Then, something surprising happened.

One afternoon - on one of the last days of June, a four-month pregnant Maria was laying out on a blanket in the backyard, wearing some sunglasses and a simple dark blue bikini. Ben and Nathan were off in one corner of the backyard playing with their squirt guns when something blocked Maria's sunlight. Tilting her head up and squinting, she lifted her sunglasses.

"Mitch?" she inquired. "What are you doing home this early?"

"I didn't go in at all today."

"Then where have you been?" Maria sat up and bent her legs to sit sideways on her blanket as the boys ran over to give their dad a hug before running off again to play.

"Paying a travel agent a visit?"

"Why? Are they being sued and you're representing them?"

"No," Mitch smirked, pulling some sort of booklet out of his suit jacket's inner pocket. "I went to a travel agent for this."

Curiously, Maria snatched the booklet from her husband's obliging hands and looked it over; her jaw dropping. "England? What's this for?"

"It's where the four of us are going in two days."

Maria couldn't believe her ears. "You're kidding me."

"Nope. And it doesn't end there," he commented with a mischievious grin. He withdrew several other booklets and tossed them onto the blanket. "Check 'em out."

Setting down the England brochure, Maria's hands delicately sorted through the others, her jaw dropping with befuddlement.

"Om my god," she muttered. "France...Spain...Italy...Germany...Switzerland?" A grin spreading from ear to ear, she certainly couldn't believe her eyes. "We're going to these places too?"

Mitch nodded. "Yup. For the next two months, we shall be living the good life in Europe."

"Oh, wow," she exclaimed. Then narrowed her eyes. "How are we paying for all this?"

"Easily," he replied. "Investments that have paid off, money in savings, the nice chunk of change I've been taking in for several years now from helping my clients win many a case." Watching his wife shake her head in disbelief, Mitch smiled. "See? All those long hours and cases have paid off. And now I'm gonna treat my family to the vacation of a lifetime. For a long time."

Tilting her head to the side, she smiled but with a bit of skepticism behind it. "For a long time?" she repeated. "What's that mean?"

"It means...I've been very careful with how I've managed money. I've invested in some good stock on Wall Street that has proved to be very plentiful." Before Maria could contest anything, Mitch leaned in and cupped her face, kissing her lips with a proud smile. "And tonight I'm taking us into Manhattan to have dinner at the 21 Club."

Grinning like a loon, Maria kissed her husband back and stood up. "I better go get ready then."

As she gathered up her blanket and sunscreen lotion, she turned her backside to Mitch who reached out and slapped her ass playfully. She turned her head toward him for a moment and gave him a knowing smirk as she walked into the back door to the house that led into the kitchen.

Mitch picked up the booklets and looked them over with a stern sigh; his eyes suggesting he was hiding something as he looked out as his sons.

* * *

Adrienne was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee on the morning of the 4th of July when Olivia poked her head into the room, bouncing slightly in one place.

"Adrienne?"

Adrienne looked up. "Yeah?"

"Do you have any aspirin?" Olivia wondered. "I got cramps."

A light smile spread across the older woman's face as she nodded. "Of course I do," she replied. "C'mon." She stood up, taking her coffee with her as she led the twelve and a half year old upstairs to her bathroom.

Standing before the medicine cabinet, Adrienne pulled out a bottle of Midol and gave Olivia two aspirin and then filled up a glass of water. Watching candidly as the girl followed the pills with a big gulp of water, she took the glass back, setting it on the countertop.

"Thanks," Olivia muttered, wincing slightly.

"D'you get your period."

Olivia nodded. "Yeah. And I hate it. Why do women have to get a period at all?"

"I suppose it's life's way of telling us our bodies are old enough to have kids."

"Well, I don't want to have kids until I'm, like, thirty. Couldn't I get my period then?"

Adrienne laughed. "If only life were that simple." She gestured for them to leave the bathroom.

"Adrienne?"

"Hmm?"

"Could you do my hair for the party?"

Looking at her stepdaughter, Adrienne nodded. "Sure. How do you want it done?"

Olivia shrugged. "I dunno. Nothing fancy. Maybe something like yours?"

"Dreadlocks?"

"Maybe."

"Your mom will kill me if I give you dreadlocks. Trust me."

"It's my hair," Olivia insisted.

"It's my life on the line," Adrienne added with a smirk.

"Fine. But can you do something close to dreadlocks?"

Adrienne tilted her head to the side, reached out her hands and fluffed up Olivia's thick, dark hair. "How about I pulled your hair up into a high ponytail and then braid it all into tiny braids?" she suggested.

Olivia looked up and to the side as she considered. Then she nodded with a smile. "Sure. That sounds cool."

* * *

"Holy shit, what happened to your head?" Billie Joe exclaimed with a laugh as his wife and three kids showed up to Tre's house for the 4th of July party. He'd been there since the morning, helping his best friend set up a party tent and then just stayed to help out with other stuff here and there, leaving Adrienne to bring the kids to the party when she wanted to.

Olivia reached her hand up to her head and played with some of the braids. "Adrienne did it," she replied proudly.

"Well, it looks...different."

Adrienne smiled. "At least it's not the dreadlocks she initially asked for."

"Heh, no. That wouldn't go over well with you mother when you go home at the end of the summer," he said to his daughter.

Tre walked up at that moment and handed Adrienne a beer and then looked down at Olivia. "Hey, sweet hair."

"Thanks," Olivia beamed before scurrying off to find Ramona. The two of them had hit it off since they first met back at Thanksgiving.

"Kids," Billie Joe remarked with a grin as he kissed his wife briefly on the cheek. He then withdrew, excusing himself as he headed off in another direction to go talk to someone who was gesturing to him.

* * *

With an eight hour time difference ahead of California, England was not the typical place a native of the Golden State would be seen spending her country's Independence Day. But it was.

Leaning on the railing of her hotel suite's balcony, Maria looked out at the London skyline to her left and to the Thames River before her. The summer breeze rippled through her hair and the skirt of her sundress as the moonlight bathed her skin.

It was a calm feeling that washed over her as she wondered how Olivia was doing with Billie Joe so many miles away from her. Reaching her hands down to her stomach, she smiled at the feeling her stomach rounding out underneath her dress' silky material. She was just over four months pregnant; abot halfway through. Which meant in about four and a half months, she'd be having a baby. In a few weeks, were she home in Long Island, she could find out the sex of the baby if she wanted, but she'd already decided against it. This time she wanted to be surprised.

Hell, her life had been full of surprises ever since she ran into Billie Joe after thirteen years of not seeing or being in contact with him at all.

A sigh got caught in her breath as she started to think of Billie Joe. It was cut short because Mitch stepped out onto the balcony and wrapped his arms around her.

"Enjoying yourself?" he asked.

Maria nodded. "Yeah. I love it here."

"Well, don't get used to it," he teased. "We're leavnig for Paris in less than a week." He kissed her bare shoulder and then looked out at the Thames. "The boys want to see fireworks."

"Are there any? I mean, this is London. Not Long Island. Two different countries."

"Yeah, but don't the English have any fireworks by that ferris wheel thing...the Eye-whatchamajigger?"

Maria shrugged. "Beats me."

"Wanna go for a walk and see if there is? If not, maybe we can all go on the Eyeball thingy and look out at the city," Mitch suggested.

Maria nodded. "Sure. That, um...that sounds like fun..."