HOUSE OF MEADOW
Sopranos Fan Fiction
THE FIRST APPOINTMENT
Dr. Melfi: Mrs. Parisi?
Meadow: Hi, I actually usually go by my maiden name, Soprano.”=
Dr. Melfi: What line of work are you in?”
Meadow: I’m an attorney doing white collar criminal defense. But I also do a lot of pro bono work. I first did volunteer work for the South Bronx Law Center during undergrad.
The doctor asks if I have a generally heavy workload, and I think to myself, “Well, that depends. Are you talking about my clients at Grubman, Grubman, & Curcio, or all of my clients?” Speaking of which, I just had coffee with a client that morning.
Dr. Melfi: Can we focus more on your immediate family?”
Meadow: As a matter of fact, my dad went to therapy for years, and all it did was help him rationalize his ability to maintain two separate families and two separate lives.
Meadow: Look, there’s always going to be someone willing to break the rules, other someones standing right behind them as enforcers, followed by those sitting in the back who mind their own business because they’re just trying to stay alive. And then there are those who don’t learn to mind their own business. You’ll find many of them lying six feet under. I happen to know a few of them.
And besides that, there were a lot of times that violence was closer than I thought. But don’t get me wrong. When my dad said “you’re all me,” he wasn’t wrong. But our biggest rough patch came right after my ex-boyfriend, Jackie, was killed.
While members of his other family may have been intimidated and afraid to get in his face, I sure wasn’t. But we loved each other. There was no doubt about that. And then I found out my parents were separating. I felt like such an asshole for all those times I’d bitched and complained. When all the while, I should have been grateful.
Maybe it was from seeing my dad leave the house and not knowing if, or when, he’d be back, but keeping my family together became really important after that.
And when I thought someone was talking badly about my family, or putting them down, or questioning us as a whole, I was not happy. And especially not when it was someone I was dating.
But therein lies another problem when you try to shut stuff out: Things can really hit you out of nowhere. Extra hard. Like when my dad got shot and almost died. To say I’m grateful that my dad survived is an understatement. But now it’s time to leave the nest, even if only for a little.
“I’m going to California.” I owed it to Finn, at least, I thought. He’d been there for me while my dad was sick and for the previous year while I was finishing up undergrad. This time, once I got back to New Jersey, I knew I wasn’t leaving again. I had pretty much decided on law school by then. But I had no idea where my career was about to take me.