Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

The Return: So Close, Yet so Far

"So he told Yancy he married his nurse!" Cory exclaimed, doubling over in laughter. He grinned at his wife with his hands held out, encouraging her to join in the merriment.

Topanga instead gave him a withering look. "Cory," she peppered the soup she was stirring with several spices. "It was only kind of funny then and it's so not funny now."

"Oh yes it is!" Cory could genuinely could not understand why she wasn't amused. "C'mon, Topanga. Don't you remember what happened? Jon had the accident and we all thought we might lose him, and then after a week... "

"Yes, I remember. I was there!" Exasperated, Topanga put her hand up to him to emphasize that she wanted him to stop. "It's been almost 20 years. Let. It. Die."

Cory gave up, disappointed, until he saw his former teacher walk into the Matthews' apartment.

"Hey Jon!" Cory grabbed hold of Turner's arm while Topanga gave the man a tight smile, pointed to her husband, and rolled her eyes. "When Shawn gets here you gotta tell him what you told Yancy about your wife!"

"What?" Jon glanced at Topanga. "That I married my nurse?"

"That's the one!" he cried, doubling over again, which made Jon chuckle and shake his head. The superintendent's smile faded when he saw the look Topanga was giving them.

"Don't you dare!" Topanga exclaimed, shaking a wooden soup-stained spoon at them. "Don't you dare tell Shawn that. Either of you!" She swatted at her husband with the spoon. "Cory! What is wrong with you?!"

"It's an inside joke, Topanga," Cory clarified as though that reasonably explained the jesting he intended to inflict upon his best friend.

"I know," she said, returning her attention to the boiling soup. "That's the problem. It's inside to us." She motioned to the three of them. "Shawn isn't going to think it's funny. He's going to believe you!"

"But that's the point. I want Shawn to be on the inside of the inside jokes. Like he always should have been." Cory looked to Jon for a little help. The older man waved his hand, indicating he would pass on getting involved in this particular dispute.

"What joke? It's not funny. A joke is supposed to be funny. You need to get new material." Topanga figured she had a far better chance of appealing to Jon's sense of reasoning than her husband's as his tended to abandon him at times. "I'm worried about Shawn, Jon. He took Angela's being married really hard. Even though he asked Katy out and everything went fine, something is still not right. He's not okay."

"That's what Cory tells me," the superintendent replied, his countenance darkening with sadness tinged with regret.

"That's exactly why I want him to be in on this, Topanga." Cory tried to explain to his wife once again what apparently only made sense to him. "This meeting is going to be a little awkward anyway. Consider this an icebreaker. Once he understands the joke he'll think it's funny. I know Shawn. We're going to get a big laugh out of it. And he needs to laugh."

Topanga continued to shake her head in disagreement.

Cory looked to Turner for help but the older man only shrugged, lost in his own thoughts. He was apprehensive about the meeting that was a little less than an hour away. Especially since Shawn wasn't exactly agreeable to meeting with him; he was only doing it because Cory hadn't given him much of a choice. And Jon really didn't want to force him into a reunion, no matter how much he wanted to see his former student again. He didn't have hope that things would go well.

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Topanga's was unusually quiet for a mid-afternoon weekday. The bakery closed early to host a private reunion. Inside, Jonathan Turner sat on one of the couches, looking pale and uncomfortable. Unconsciously, he wrung his hands. His obviousness anxiety was extremely out of character. Cory was arranging and rearranging a number of coffee cups on the counter in front of him. He found his excitement hard to contain and so had busied himself with preparing an excessive amount of coffee and dishes, twelve in total, for three people. The silence caused Cory to look up. "You okay, Jon? You seem really nervous."