Previously in "Dulcius Ex Asperis":

NYU law professor Jefferson Thomas and bookstore owner Monique Vasquez have adjusted well to their new lives and relationship, established in the previous book. Now, now opportunities and challenges present themselves.


With all that happened in the last eighteen hours, Jefferson forgot Eric having mentioned he wanted to talk until his friend texted him. With Monique having left for the bookstore, they agreed to meet at the former's home with the latter bringing lunch.

Eric arrived around a quarter to noon, carrying several plastic cartons.

"Brought you Philadelphia Rolls," he announced. "Your favorite."

"Thanks," Jefferson said as Eric set the food on the table and settled himself in a chair.

"What's going on with you?" Jefferson queried as his friend open his own container of Spicy Tuna rolls. "You seem very mysterious yesterday."

Eric paused and then grinned.

"Congratulate me," he said. "I'm a dad all over again."

"Really?" Jefferson asked, surprised more than anything else.

"Yeah, Amy just started in her second trimester, so we've begun telling people."

Jefferson knew the couple's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. They'd already done everything but place an ad in the New York Times when it happened three months into it. The couple had been much more careful ever since.

Eric nearly dropped the roll he had been bringing to his mouth. He'd been practicing using chopsticks and prided himself on his progress, even if it could be described as "slow" at best.

"Are you joking?" Jefferson asked.

"No," Eric replied, swallowing. "I thought the same when Amy told me."

"I didn't know you guys were trying."

"We weren't," Eric admitted, poking another roll with a chopstick.

Jefferson considered this.

"What happened?" he asked. He knew Eric and Amy were careful when it came to contraception. Selfishly, he was fishing for hints that he and Monique needed to adjust their own precautions.

Eric chuckled.

"Please tell me your parents had this talk with you already," he said.

Jefferson ate another of his rolls. Unlike his friend, he never bothered with chopsticks and used one of the plastic forks the restaurant provided.

Eric also took another roll, chewed, and swallowed.

"Keith was a surprise for us," he recounted. "We tried every trick in the book when we were trying to conceive. Took us almost a year before Sam was a reality. About three years later, Keith just popped up in Amy. To this day, I don't know if it was a defective condom or what. Now I'll have two kids whose origins require an investigation."

Jefferson flinched at the mention of faulty contraceptives.

"You and Monique are being careful, right?" Eric inquired.

"Yeah," Jefferson said, now more uncomfortable. "Always."

"Good. The campaign pregnancy worked for Jackie Kennedy, but I'm not sure how that would play today."

"You're assuming I'll run," Jefferson said.

"Will you?"

Jefferson had absolutely no idea.

* * *

Monique couldn't believe she was doing this. willing her body to cooperate, she slipped the blade of her letteropener into the slit of the large envelope's flap. Carefully pushing the instrument in deeper, she then concentrated on pushing it up.

The paper gave. Seeing the corners of the documents inside, Monique felt a fresh wave of queeziness. Understanding she needed to keep going, she pushed the letteropener across.

Three sharp knocks on her office door interrupted her work.

"Come in," Monique said, setting the envelope and letteropener on her desk.

The knocker tried the door, but it didn't open. The metallic thuds reminded Monique she'd locked the door. She hadn't wanted anyone to walk in on her.

"Hang on," she said. "I'm coming."

She maneuvered her chair around her desk. Reaching the door, she fumbled with the lock, needing two tries before she was able to unlock it. She settled her shaking arms back on her chair's armrests as Lizzie opened the door.

"Hey," the tall redhead said, "I'm going to lunch."

"Okay," Monique said. "I'll head up front to watch the register."

She moved forward and turned left to enter the store as Lizzie exited through the building's rear door.

As she moved along the shelves, Monique reflected how so much had changed. Two years ago, she'd had this store with three employees. Frank and Kathy Quigley were inherited when she took over the place upon her mother's retirement. She had a rotating roster of college students serving as a third worker. Back then, they often all ate lunch together in the store, Monique sometimes footing the entire bill. Business had been decent despite the competition from the chain stores and online retailers. Monique had managed to avoid buyout offers from more than one major corporation. She loved her work and her customers. She didn't want to leave for the better life she'd been offered. Plus, the offers sometimes came with a definition of "better" she didn't agree with.

Situating herself behind the register, Monique set one hand on her stomach. The envelope on her desk might as well be on the counter in front of her.

Her life only improved when she met Jefferson. It had been almost a cliché with her noticing him entering her store with the twins and Matthew surrounding him. They were a new family then, the kids having just moved into his brownstone. They'd all seemed so nervous and tentative back then.

"You okay, Boss?" Frank queried.

Turning her head, Monique saw him working further down the counter. Like so many other businesses, they'd established a curbside pickup option for customers to pick up orders with Monique teaching herself enough website design skills to set up a payment venue on the store's website. The site had first been set up by one of the graduate students working under her for a semester or two. Apart from updating the information about the store's inventory, Monique hadn't touched it much until the pandemic.

"I'm okay," she told Frank. "Just thinking."

It was a reasonable response which didn't invite suspicion. So much had changed in the bookstore alone, starting with the staff. After they were all ordered to lock down by the Mayor and Governor in March of the previous year, Kathy decided to retire. The following summer, she relocated to Columbus, Ohio, to be closer to one of her daughters and young grandchildren. Like all the businesses in the neighborhood, the bookstore took a hit and, while she was lucky enough to avoid going out of business altogether, she could no longer afford to retain a third employee, part-time or otherwise. She'd been lucky enough to find Lizzie, who'd lost her previous job when the cosmetics boutique she worked at went belly-up last fall.

Monique was still processing these changes and now had this new one to contend with. That alone left her feeling queasy. She'd never imagined the possibility of shuttering the bookstore. She'd never imagined raising her debt. Now, she had no other options.

* * *

Matthew, Taylor, and Abigail were surprised to find Jefferson at home when they returned from school.

"Dad?" Taylor asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you guys," Jefferson explained. In truth, he'd been feeling as stir-crazy in his office as he'd been at home. With his three classes over, he decided to use the kids to distract himself even though he'd have to return to the law school later to be present for his usual office hours.

He and Anya had made the kids' afternoon snack earlier and he set it out on the table for them, first inspecting it for signs of his and Monique's half-conversation that morning. He knew this was ridiculous, but he was not ready to tell the kids anything yet. He was grateful Anya was not one to pry when his routine changed.

"How was school?" he queried as they all sat down, Presley settling herself on the floor between Abagail and Matthew. The kids long knew better than to give the dog any of their food. As a guide dog, Presley knew better than to beg, but she could still be alert for AFEs ... accidental falling edibles.

"Fine," Taylor and Matthew chorused as they dug into the caramelized carrot and celery sticks their nanny often made.

Abigail was more eager to share, launching into an update about the cartoons she was learning to draw in art class. Jefferson nodded, thinking about how he'd once never considered having any kids. Now, he had trouble with the idea of leaving them behind for what was sure to be a year or more.

He glanced towards where he knew Matthew was sitting. Though he'd adopted the boy the previous year alongside his older sisters, their bond went to a depth no one, including Matthew, his sisters, or Monique, knew of. While the world believed all three kids were left orphaned by the actions of a drunk driver, that was technically not true in Matthew's case.

"Dad," Taylor said.

"Yeah?" Jefferson responded, focusing again.

"Is Monique coming over tonight?"

Jefferson wasn't sure.

"I don't know," he said. "Why?"

"I need help with my book report," Taylor replied.

"We'll see. Otherwise, I can help you."

Jefferson doubted his daughter needed help with a book report. She'd been advanced to the 5th grade in her English class. But she was close with Monique. Jefferson hoped she would nevertheless accept his help. It'd be a nice distraction from the fact he needed to figure out what to do about this new chapter.

* * *

To Jefferson's surprise, Monique did arrive at the brownstone late that afternoon. She sat down with Taylor in the den to help her with the report on "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was apparently completed by the time Jefferson returned from the law school for the second time that day.

"How did it go?" he queried, sitting on the couch Taylor had occupied earlier.

"Fine," Monique replied. She had the same suspicions about the child's motives as he did. But, Taylor did the work, so she didn't mind.

"It's funny," she said. "I sometimes still have trouble wrapping my head around when they call you 'Dad'."

Jefferson nodded. After taking in the kids following the car accident, he'd been their guardian until the previous fall. For the longest time, they called him "Uncle Jeff". With their consent, he'd formally adopted all three of them. The title "Dad" came about around the following Christmas. Jefferson, Monique, and Anya shared a joke it was started as a way of sucking up during the holiday season. They all knew the change meant more than that, for them and the kids.

"How was your day?" Monique asked.

"Fine," Jefferson replied. "Busy."

Monique nodded.

"Lots to think about?" she asked, moving her wheelchair closer to the couch.

"Yeah," Jefferson admitted. "I can't get it straight in my head."

Monique reached out and clasped one of Jefferson's hands in hers.

"You said they wouldn't want an answer from you at least until after Election Day, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jefferson confirmed, squeezing her hand in return.

"Well, I've come to one conclusion. We're trying to sort out too much too fast. We need time to see if we can even get it all straight."

She certainly couldn't figure out if she could take on a larger parental role while trying to keep her business afloat.

Jefferson looked at her.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked. He certainly hoped she didn't want to take time apart to sort all this out.

"We have to continue with our lives, regardless of what we now have to deal with," Monique said. "How about we each take some time to figure all this out and we talk about it maybe in a few weeks. For now, we continue as we were and just each take time when we have it to think."

Jefferson found this idea appealing. Since the COVID outbreak, they'd spent far too much time apart.

"Matthew's birthday is coming up," he said. "How about we talk after that?"

Monique smiled.

"I like that," she said.

Jefferson also knew she wouldn't disappear on him in the interim. She'd never miss one of the kids birthdays. Still, he'd take a chance.

"You wanna stay here tonight?" he asked.

"I've got a new nurse tonight," Monique said, "but I'm sure she'll come here."

In reality, she'd already made sure of that. She wasn't ready to talk about what she had to deal with, but she still wanted to be close with him.

"How's that going, anyway?" Jefferson asked, squeezing her hand again. He always liked the feel of her. It was somewhat a substitute for his being unable to see her.

Monique took a deep breath.

"It's going okay," she said. It had been a tough year, but she supposed she might soon be able to pare down her nursing staff to one or two people. At least she hoped she could. Something had to go back to normal.

"I love you," Jefferson said.

"I love you, too," Monique returned with another smile.