After the contentious custody battle, Frank & Mary go on with their lives as usual. But it isn't until an eventful night at Ferg's that Frank starts to wonder if maybe his life might be missing something. Now that his niece has a normal life, maybe...
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Frank wasn't sure which one of his girls was more excited for Mary and Sam's joint birthday party that weekend: Mary or Joey. In her defense, Frank could tell that Joey was trying her hardest to play it cool and act like an adult, but he was getting better and better at reading her moods and he could tell that she was just beside herself and bursting with happiness the closer the date of the party came.
Joey had been practically glowing for days. Even a blind man could have noticed how excited she'd been, so Frank tried not to gloat too much inside. Frank loved watching how becoming a mother continued to change her and how she embraced all of Sam's milestones with loving pride.
This would be the very first birthday of Sam's since becoming her foster son and Joey confessed that she'd been trying to soak it all in so she wouldn't forget a single thing. He found her heart so profoundly honest and beautiful. She was adorable and he couldn't help himself from kissing her when she shared that part of herself with him. Even though Mary would playfully gag and roll her eyes if she caught their public displays of affection. He knew that this party was important to Joey and, therefore, it started to become important to him as well.
Overall, Frank couldn't help but be influenced by Joey's positivity and he found himself so grateful that Mary got an opportunity to be included in all of the festivities. He hadn't really been much of a party planner in the past. He loved Mary to pieces of course, but the majority of Mary's birthdays had gone by with a store bought cake and trip to the toy store after he'd taken her and Roberta out to eat at her favourite restaurant. Keeping things low key and private had always been more of his and Mary's style. Besides, Mary would have needed friends her own age to invite to a birthday party.
But this year, since her and Sam's birthday's were so close together, Mary was going to be surrounded by friends and loved ones and celebrated the way that her birth deserved to be celebrated. Between school and Girl Scouts, Mary had more than enough friends to invite. The more Frank thought about it, the more choked up he became and figured that all of Joey's sentimentality must be rubbing off on him.
The evening before the party, the four of them were hanging out at his house after dinner. The kids were busy playing and Joey was washing his dishes while Bob purred and rubbed himself against her legs as she worked. Frank was leaning against the counter half listen to Joey go on and on about all of the things that she had bought for Mary and Sam and wondering out loud what her mother had planned for the party. Frank tried to pay attention, but he couldn't seem to stop his mind from wandering to his sister.
"What's wrong? I'm a talking too much?" Joey laughed. "I'm just all keyed up, I'll stop. I must be annoying the hell outta you."
"No no." Frank smiled and shook his head and took a dish from her, dried it off and put it in his cupboard. "I'm sorry. What were saying about a petting zoo? Yeah, I doubt it, the neighbours would have a fit."
"Well Ma isn't letting anything slip so anything is possible." Joey playfully warned with a wink. Frank smiled at her but she could tell that something was bothering him, so she reached out and took his hand and rubbed her thumb across his knuckles and gave him her full attention. "What cha thinkin' about?"
