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 and Joey soon found their flight from Boston to Montana a lot more eventful than their flight from Florida to Boston. It all started at the gate when Mary refused to sit with Evelyn and Sam, funnily enough, refused to sit with anyone but Evelyn.
Joey secretly mouthed, "thank you", to Frank's mother when Evelyn agreed to the seat change to save off a complete tantrum in the middle of the airport. They were all sitting fairly close together, so Joey was confident that she would be able to help her if Sam became too much for her handle on her own.
"Maybe Evelyn is trying." Joey commented to Frank as they sat at their gate and waited for their flight to be called while Mary read on another bench and Evelyn took Sam to Starbucks for a treat.
"Hope does spring eternal." Frank dryly quipped as he flipped through his book.
"Frank." Joey sighed at his pessimism. "She volunteered to sit next to a four year old on a airplane. Does that sound like the Evelyn Adler that you know?"
"No it doesn't." he begrudgingly admitted without taking his eyes from his book. "I know that you want to believe the best in people, babe, but she stood on our porch and blackmailed us to get us to Montana and then tricked us into a Boston detour. Don't forget that."
"How could I forget something like that?" Joey narrowed her eyes at him and was insulted that he could think that she could overlook such a thing. "But she's an Adler. And, in my experience, you lot tend to lash out when you're at your most vulnerable. Give me some credit, I've learned look beyond your outbursts and have tried not to take them too personally. I've also become pretty familiar with scaling the walls you all put up to protect yourselves...at this point I'm practically a damn mountaineer."
"It's not the same thing." Frank dismissed her and tried to pretend that he was still reading.
"We'll see." Joey scoffed. "But whether I'm right or wrong, you still should try and find some civil ground with her. She's your mother and that's never going to change."
"Don't remind me." Frank grumbled. He could sense Joey's frustration with him and he started to feel like an ass for shooting down all of her hope of a happy ending. As usual, her heart was in the right place, so he closed his book and gave her his attention. "Let's just visit Walter and play things by ear, okay. Once she's busy with Diane's theory again, we'll go back home and get the ball rolling on adopting Mary and Sam. It's not that I don't want a relationship with her, but not like this. Once I know that the kids are no longer at risk, we can see where things stand with my mother after that. That's the best I can do right now, okay. "
"You want to adopt Sam, too?"
"Well...yeah. Why?" Frank was taken back by the hesitation in Joey's voice, he thought that they had been on the same page. "Do you not want me to adopt Sam, as well? I thought you were okay with me becoming his father?"
