I am soooooo sorrry I never posted this last chapter. I completely forgot about apparently and just posted it over at Passion Perfect on livejournal. Please forgive me. I will post it now for your very late enjoyment! So sorry again.

Exhibit 10

The case was cracked, but it still had to be clarified and details had to be obtained.

In typical fashion mom called a family meeting the following evening. She cleared her schedule, made sure we were both free, and then took us out to DANIEL. We sat around a round table covered in a white tablecloth, all seemingly tongue-tied, for we all knew why we were there, it was just that no one wanted to begin the conversation.

Mother fidgeted; she typed out a message on her blackberry and then set it aside.

She sipped her water, seemingly avoiding the topic she had brought us here to discuss. After I shot a quick look at my sister, our mother finally gave in and began talking.

"I don't want to hear about why you object to it, because frankly it's going to happen regardless of how you feel," She was defensive, and this was not at all the way I thought the conversation would begin.

"Mom," Caroline cut in, but mom cut her off.

"I have been seeing Andrea for the past month. We've only just recently become acquainted with one another again and now that she is not under my employ we began a relationship of sorts." They were so sleeping together before this, oh my God. Were they having an affair while Andy had worked for mom? How had I missed that?

"Mom, we don't care that you're screwing a chick." Caroline uncouthly stated before our mother could go on. Our mother, who normally looked so cool and calm and collected, was now actually fidgeting and looking downright uncomfortable about having to tell us this.

"Caroline, please lower your voice," Mother glanced around, seeming to see if the other patrons around us had heard my sister's rather loud statement. After she was sure they had not, she turned back to my sister, "and please, do not use such vulgar language."

"But mom, really," I added, "we don't care."

"Yeah, you seem happy," Caroline quickly chimed in.

"Exactly, you're happy, except I think you're not happy that you have to sneak around, you know?" I nodded.

Our mother looked from Caroline to me and then back and then back again, as if we were strangers, people she'd never met before.

"Are you telling me, that you are not angry, or hurt, or sad that I have taken a woman as a lover?" She questioned, disbelief lacing the edge of her voice.

"Not at all," I shook my head, finding that I was actually relieved that our mother had finally chosen someone more appropriate. Having another woman around the house might be fun.

"Yeah, mom. I mean I've dated a couple of girls." Caroline added, sipping her water casually.

It was our mother's turn to look mortified, "what?"

"I mean…" Caroline quickly tried to backtrack.

But our mother's features suddenly softened and she looked at Caroline with a renewed compassion. "I had no idea I had such forward thinking daughter's." She looked completely baffled and yet somehow relieved. "Well, then. That's that."

And that was how we officially found out. And also how I officially found out that the rumor around the school about my sister and other girls was true.

It took exactly six months and fifteen days for my mother to finally work up the courage to ask Andrea to move in to our spacious abode. And those six months and fifteen days were like shear agony for our mother. Every day that she did not wake up next to Andy was a torturous day. She would wallow over breakfast, and her comments were very direct and sharp and I knew that those around her at work would be paying some heinous price for our mother's lack of contact with her younger lover.

My sister and I could always tell the days that Andy had not stayed over. Our mother was very tense during dinner, checking her phone repeatedly, waiting for Andy to call her, to tell her she would come over, or even just talk to her.

Of course Max made the whole situation even more complex. He was only ever gone on the weekends, as were my sister and I -albeit occasionally- and so our mother had to respect that Andy's time with her son sometimes needed more work than their relationship. And until they moved in, Max was not entirely comfortable with the idea of going to "Miranda's house for a sleepover." And his school was across town, and there were many, MANY roadblocks to my mother's secret affair with her once upon a time assistant.

And so our mother put her foot down, hating to see Andy having to chose between tending to her son and tending to our mom's needs, and so she made her move in. Okay maybe not made her, but they decided it made the most sense.

And slowly our family began to meld together.

I had no idea that one little boy could completely change my sister.

The day Max moved in was the day my sister quite sneaking out. Instead she snuck in.

After retrieving some tea from the kitchen, for I was running low from a late night study session for my French course, I slowly crept up the back staircase. I passed by my mother's closed bedroom door and I could have sworn I heard my mother call out a faint, "Andrea!"

I cringed at the noise and hurried on, realizing that for the first time in a long time she was at least actually in bed before 11 and not still working in her study.

As I headed up the stairs towards my bedroom, I noticed that my sister's room's door was open, but there was no sign of her existence in the room. As I passed by my own room, I decided to continue on up the stairs. I wanted to see where my sister might have ventured off to. After giving her room a once over, I heard whispered voices up on the fourth floor. Quietly I tip-toed up the stairs and headed towards the dark blue room with glow-in-the-dark stars painted on the walls. Max's new room.

As I neared the room, I saw what looked like a flashlight playing beneath a blanket made tent that had been built in the middle of the room. The exact same tent my sister and I had made when we were younger, when our mother was gone to events and we wanted to entertain ourselves late at night.

I crept to the opening of the tent and quickly made my presence known.

"Cassidy! You scared me!" Caroline nearly screamed when I pulled the blanket to the side.

I just grinned at her and then patted Max on the head, "hey buddy. Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"I couldn't sleep." He said, looking all business and no play.

"Come join us," Caroline patted the spot beside her. After I'd slipped inside the warm blanket tent, my sister explained herself. "He couldn't sleep, I came up to read to him."

"And you ended up in a tent." I laughed.

"I like sleepovers at Miranda's house." Max grinned at us, his deep brown eyes nearly melting me to the spot.

I knew my sister was equally hooked, and for some reason that little boy changed my sister.

And that was how the case was cracked.

Our mother's hidden love surfaced and she'd never been happier. I could feel it when she hugged me, the way she greeted me, talked to me, it had all changed because of Andy. Gone was the tenseness, the anger that she had been holding in, the sadness she always seemed to carry. It was all erased when I caught them tenderly kissing in the kitchen when they thought no one was watching. It vanished during the night when Andy was the one who occupied the other side of my mother's bed.

Life could not have been better. For all of us.

And how suiting that we would all end up on a blistery summer day in the park.

My sister was running around, chasing after Max. I was busy taking pictures. Pictures of my sister grabbing Max, wrestling him gently to the ground. Pictures of my mother with her arms wrapped tightly around Andy as they bathed in the half-sun, half-shadow of a tree.

I caught them in a passionate kiss, and mother quickly shot me a warning glance, daring me to take another picture. Which I did.

I realized, as I turned to shot pictures of the tree line with the city in the background, I realized that out of all the people my mother had loved, this love was the perfect love.

Case closed.