TITLE: Ripening AUTHOR: Leslie Sholly E-MAIL: PennySyc@aol.com DISTRIBUTION: If you like it, it's yours. Just leave my name and address attached. And please let me know, if possible. SPOILER WARNING: Requiem RATING: G CLASSIFICATION: VR KEYWORDS: MSR, Babyfic SUMMARY: Scully embraces her inner mother. DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox own these characters. I mean no infringement or disrespect. FEEDBACK: Cherished and always answered. Please let me know what you thought. Pennysyc@aol.com (Leslie) ********************* Ripening by Leslie Sholly ********************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A mother's hardest to forgive. Life is the fruit she longs to hand you Ripe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you." --Phyllis McGinley ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Last Thanksgiving, I slept late, didn't watch the parade, ate a frozen dinner, and tried to pretend it was just another day. Mulder was still missing then, and I was pregnant with a baby only Skinner and the Gunmen knew I was carrying. Four days in close quarters with my family in San Diego would have revealed a secret I was not ready to share. Years pass so quickly as one grows older. Sometimes it amazes me to realize how much of a difference the passage of 365 days can make. On the eve of this Thanksgiving, on which the Scully clan will gather at my mother's home in Arlington, I'm standing at my kitchen counter, ready to cry over another failed pie crust, while Mulder rocks the baby in the living room. It's a good thing that we can't know what the future holds. Had I foreseen a fraction of the events that would spring from my knocking on Mulder's basement door nine years ago, I might have fled the FBI without a backward glance. I don't rejoice in the tragedies of the past nine years, but I know that I am happier now than I have ever been. I would never have imagined myself as a stay-at- home mother. When I dreamed of my imaginary 2.3 children, an expensive model daycare or a full-time nanny figured prominently in my plans. But when the time came for me to return to work after Daisy was born, I couldn't do it. I cried like a baby myself the first time I left her with Mulder for a few hours so that I could perform an autopsy for him. Leaving her all day, every day, was clearly out of the question. If finances had required it, I'm sure we would have adjusted. But it's not like that's an issue. I didn't marry Mulder for his money, but if I'd known how much his parents left him, I might have been tempted. To leave Daisy in the FBI daycare when Mulder bought a house for cash without making a dent in his inheritance seemed ridiculous. Mulder would have been glad to stay home with her himself. But I was the one with the equipment, after all. And the thought of hooking myself up to a milking machine in between chasing monsters when I could have been feeding my baby myself was unappealing. Daisy. She's Margaret, really, for my mom, and that's what I had intended to call her. It was her daddy who dubbed her Daisy in utero, and the name stuck although since my command of French is limited Mulder had to explain to me how it happens that Daisy is a legitimate nickname for Margaret. Mulder's a man of the new millennium. He's perfectly happy--eager, actually--to take over Daisy duty when he gets home from work. He bathes Daisy, changes her, rocks her, sings to her. Only her nourishment is my job alone. And it's not as if I've been reduced to some kind of nonentity in Mulder's eyes just because I'm not earning a salary any more. He respects my intelligence; he still relies on me for help with his cases. Furthermore, he considers caring for our daughter to be an incredibly important job. "You're a wonderful mother, Scully," he says admiringly, as I effortlessly soothe Daisy when he can't make her stop crying. In many ways, I have the best of both worlds. My job at the Bureau will always be waiting for me, should I ever care to return. Since Mulder and I saved the world when I was eight months pregnant, they cut us a certain amount of slack. Even though I'm not paid for my consulting, Mulder frequently asks for my help in reviewing new X-Files. Doggett's a fine investigator, and he has enough skepticism to keep Mulder in check, but science isn't his strong suit. I've even adjusted now to leaving Daisy for a short time in order to perform autopsies occasionally, when Mulder and Doggett feel that my expertise is required. What surprises me is how much I'm enjoying all this, how I'm relaxing into this normal life I never thought I'd have. It's sweet, staying cozy in bed with Daisy in the early mornings while Mulder kisses us both good-bye. I usually take her for a walk after breakfast, then tackle the house while she takes her morning nap. We run errands or work in the yard in the early afternoons, then I make dinner for Mulder while Daisy naps again. At first I was content to throw a couple of frozen dinners in the microwave. But after Daisy and I got into a routine and the shock of becoming a wife and a stay-at-home mom in quick succession began to wear off, I started to need to feel challenged again. Trying to plan, shop for, and cook meals from scratch with a newborn baby who wants to nurse every hour or so and won't sleep anywhere except in a sling on your body provides such a challenge, believe me. So I began cooking real dinners, producing them hot from the oven when Mulder walked in the door. Let me make it clear that I wasn't doing this out of any sense of obligation. I *wanted* to do it. That was the strange thing. I could have accepted taking on this new role as a 'my job, your job' kind of thing--Mulder brings home the bacon, I fry it up in a pan--but it wasn't like that. I wanted to cook; I *enjoyed* cooking. Then there was our barren yard. It clearly needed some landscaping and color. I found myself stopping at nurseries, buying plants, hauling topsoil in my trunk. I'd dig in the dirt while Daisy watched with interest from her stroller. And I didn't do it just because the yard needed help--I could have called yard people if it were just that. I enjoyed it--the challenge of planning what plant would work where, figuring out how to stagger plantings to make the colors last longer. I slowly began to realize how an intelligent woman could find satisfaction in the home. And one day I said to myself, "I'm turning into my mother." I love my mother dearly, and our relationship has been blessedly free of rough spots compared to the relationships of most mothers and daughters I'm aware of. But I don't know that I ever admired her. I don't know that I ever understood her, or tried to, or that I respected her choices. I suppose if I thought about it at all that I saw my mom as a product of her times, chained to home and family when she could have done, could have *been*, so much more. But now, raising Daisy and thinking about my mom doing all the things I was trying to do with four preschoolers in the house, while moving every few years, with no husband at home to relieve her in the evenings and no family close by to help, admiration awakened in me. My mother is no lightweight intellectually. She quit college after two years to marry my dad, but she was the high school valedictorian and she had a full scholarship. Over the years she took classes occasionally, she participated in book discussion groups, she was deeply involved in promoting the issues she cared about through various groups in the Church. Her nighttime reading included philosophers, theologians, and historians, not best- sellers or romances. And although my mom my not have saved the world herself, she raised a daughter who did. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." That's what they say, and I'm beginning to believe it, to see what an important piece of work it is, bringing up a child. When I think of my mother's encouraging and benevolent influence on me, and compare it with Teena Mulder's destructive and demoralizing influence over her son, I'm even more grateful to my mom and determined to be like her. I haven't shared this realization with my mom yet. I guess I haven't wanted to capitulate, to identify with her too much. To admit I've turned into her. I haven't asked her advice on my garden, I haven't called her for recipes. I've always kind of held myself above all that, talking to Bill and Charlie about career-oriented topics at family gatherings while Kristin and Tara talk to Mom about recipes or help with the baking in the kitchen or tell her baby stories. Maybe it's been a way of protecting myself from the pain of talking about the life I was never going to have. I think I'm afraid to talk to my mother about this, to share the new side of my becoming self, because I fear a change in our relationship. To share this implies a breaking down of barriers, an acknowledgment of sameness between us that I have not been willing to admit. I spent so many years distancing myself from my parents, trying to find my own way aside from the path they had planned for me. I've lived my life as differently as possible from my mother's whether by design or by accident, and I can't help but wonder what it means that I now find myself enjoying the same kinds of things she does. I need to remind myself that I can share interests with my mother without being her. I'm not my mom. I'm not my mom, I'm me. And this change can be a part of me, a good part, without negating any of the other good parts of me. That woman who solved mysteries and chases monsters and did autopsies is this woman. The hands that wielded a gun and a scalpel can cradle my baby, chop onions, dig a hole for spring flowers, knead dough. It's not a contradiction. I can't be reduced to simplicity. Maybe no one can. Just as my mom is far from being one-sided, neither are the other people in my life. Mulder attacks X-Files and pick-up basketball games with equal enthusiasm. Frohike enjoys cooking cheese steaks and hot tamales when he's not working on the Magic Bullet. Byers and Suzanne go shopping for antiques on weekends. Langly has a collection of every Disney movie ever made. Skinner is a Big Brother and a wine connoisseur. Why do I accept their individuality and yet deny myself permission to be multifaceted? With the single exception of my choice of the FBI, I always turned to Daddy when I wanted advice. I was always eager to hear what he had to say about colleges, or careers, or renting an apartment, or buying a car, even though he was frequently forceful and judgmental in his opinions. Perhaps it's time I accepted the fact that it's O.K. to ask my mother for help in the areas of *her* expertise. I've been working on pies for over a week now. I tried the recipe from the Joy of Cooking. I tried the one from Better Homes and Gardens. I bought a frozen one for comparison. Sometimes the dough stuck to the rolling pin. Other times it tore into pieces. Or the finished product was tough and chewy instead of flaky. Tomorrow will be Daisy's first Thanksgiving, and I want her first taste of pumpkin pie to include the same perfect crust my mother's pies always have. The last Thanksgiving I spent with my family, Tara and Kristin spent hours in the kitchen with my mom, trying to learn how to make biscuits. Mom learned to make them from my father's mother. She learned, I remember her saying, by watching, because Granny didn't have a recipe. She knew the proportions of ingredients were right by the feel of the dough, and in time, my mother learned this art too, producing light and perfect biscuits every single time. I think I was playing Horse with Charlie's older kids while the baking was going on. And there's nothing wrong with that. But now I ask myself if I really want to have to rely on Tara and Kristin to produce my mother's specialties for family dinners after she's gone. And so, finally, I come to a decision. I pick up the phone and dial my mom's number. I have to wait through several rings for her to pick up, and I'm almost startled when she finally answers. "Hello?" "Hi, Mom." "Hi, Sweetie! How's my girl tonight?" That would be Daisy, not me. "She's fine. Mulder's reading to her." "That's nice. What are you up to?" I take a deep breath and say, "I'm trying to make a pie crust, and I'm not having much luck. If you're not too busy, could we come over tonight? I want you to show me how *you* do it." My mom is clearly pleased and flattered by my request, offering assurances that a pastry cloth and a rolling pin cover, along with her expert advice, will put a quick end to my pie crust woes. I am just hanging up when Mulder enters the kitchen with a very fussy Daisy. "She wants you," he says, handing her over. I tell him about the change in our evening's plans as Daisy eagerly latches on. "Oh," he says, "I was hoping that you could look over some crime scene and autopsy photos from that new case I was telling you about." I laugh, suddenly feeling very lighthearted. "That'll be fine, Mulder. Just bring them along. I can look at them while the pies are baking." THE END Do you have any recipes to share? Feed me at PennySyc@aol.com (Leslie).