anon tumblr prompt: " Miranda, Andy and their four kids are enjoying a nice family day. a knock on the door changes everything. Andy and especially the family get a major surprise when a girl shows up, Andy's daughter she gave up for adoption when she was 14. angst between kids and girl. angst with Miranda and girl, Andy and kids. ending with nice fluff" enjoy guys.
Cassidy was right in the middle of telling a story about her rather eccentric junior year English teacher when a knock on the door interrupted her. Andy looked at Miranda, a questioning look on her face. Of all the people at the table she was probably the most likely to have someone interrupt their family dinner. It had been going so well, too. They had had no interruptions at all, not even a text message or email throughout their whole day.
Miranda, however, just shrugged. She had no idea who it could be either. Andy looked at the twins and they gave her the same look. Andy glanced down at their five year old daughter, Mia, and shook her head before even thinking about it.
Andy sighed and stood. Hopefully it was just girl scouts selling cookies or what not. Andy could go for a box of thin mints, no matter how much Miranda disapproved. She knew the twins would totally be in for thin mints, too, and Miranda never said no to them about such trivial things as cookies.
She opened the door to find not a troop of girl scouts, but a girl a little younger than Caroline and Cassidy. Andy titled her head, well out of all eventualities this wasn't one she had thought about.
"Hello, can I help you?" Andy smiled and straightened. She didn't look like she meant any harm, if anything she looked a little lost and scared.
The girl looked her in the eyes finally and all breath left Andy's body. Her eyes looked so much like those who stared back in the mirror every day. She shook herself just slightly. She was just being over dramatic.
"Does, um, Andrea, um," she looked down at a piece of paper crumpled in her hands. "Andrea Sachs live here?"
Andy's brows scrunched for a second. "Yes, that's me. What's up?"
The girl bit her lip. "I know it's weird, but can I come in? I, um, kinda don't want to talk about it on your front porch, you know?"
Andy looked behind her and up the hallway to where the light from the dining room was spilling out into the hall. She looked back at the girl again. The girl didn't look like she was going to be a danger, but did she trust her around her family? It was the City after all and she wasn't the innocent and naïve Midwesterner that she was when she had moved here. But the nervous, scared look on the girl's face was enough to play on the mother within her and she opened the door wider. If one of her daughters was on someone else's porch, even in such an upscale part of town, she would want them to be let in.
"Come on in then. We were just finishing up dinner." Andy led the girl to Miranda's study as the living room is awash in Barbies and HotWheels and Legos and isn't fit for a guest to see. It really isn't fit to live in at the moment, but Andy hasn't had the heart to make the girls pick up just yet after the day they've been having.
The habit of being a good hostess that Andy's mother had forced into her kicked in. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Um, no, thank you, though." The girl's stomach growled loudly and Andy raised her eyebrow at the girl.
The girl flushed and looked at the carpet. "Sorry, I, uh, haven't eaten in a while. It's been a long trip."
"A long trip? Where from?" Andy thought about it. Depending on where the girl was from in the city it really could have taken a while to get here depending on the type of transportation she used.
"Columbus."
Andy's thoughts stopped dead. "Ohio?"
The girl nodded. "Yeah." She looked at the floor again.
All thoughts of playing good hostess were gone. "What are you doing here from Columbus? How did you even get here? Do your parents know you're here? You're like fifteen, sixteen, right?"
"Fifteen, I'm sixteen in about another month."
That comment made Andy look the girl over more carefully. Yes, her eyes were just like Andy's and her face shape was generally the same. The hair color wasn't anything like hers, though, a medium blonde verging on dirty blonde that didn't look like it was out of a bottle, or if it was it had to be a super expensive one. She acted a bit like Andy had at her age. But there were hundreds of thousands of girls in Ohio. It could all just be coincidence.
"Honey, what's your name?"
"Rebecca Stephens, but everyone calls me Bex."
Andy closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. It had been a closed adoption. But she hadn't been able to resist in college. She had the investigative skills courtesy of her journalism degree. She had found the little girl, just to find her, to know she was happy and nothing more. And she had. A little girl with bright blonde hair shot through with brown highlights and an open smile. She had been happy and Andy had left everything alone after that, satisfied with the knowledge.
She opened her eyes and looked at the girl once more. "Bex, I'm going to go get my wife now. She needs to be here for this conversation."
Bex just stared at her with wide eyes and it was then Andy understood how Miranda fell for that look every damn time. She swallowed hard and turned from the room.
She walked into the dining room on shaky legs. Everyone stared up at her with wide eyes. Miranda was on her feet, in front of her in a second.
"Darling, who was at the door? Are you ok?"
Andy shook her head. "Not really." She took Miranda's hand and tugged her along to the kitchen. She grabbed a glass and a plate, filling them with water and food. Miranda looked on confused. Andy set them down and turned to her wife, swallowing around the lump in her throat.
"Almost sixteen years ago I had a daughter. I put her up for adoption. I was fourteen, I had nothing to offer a kid. She was who was at the door. She's sitting in your study." Andy said it all in a rush, guilt crashing over her that she did not tell Miranda about this, not even when they had discussed having Mia and not during her pregnancy either. They were supposed to have no secrets, but this had been something that Andy hadn't been able to let go of.
Miranda stood there, stock still, staring at Andy with narrowed eyes. The expression on her face would have scared the ever living bejeezus out of her while she was her assistant. She couldn't say that much had changed now, except that she knew that Miranda would not have her strung up and gutted while the rest of Runway watched. Only ruling that out wasn't much of a comfort.
The older woman blinked and stepped back. "We will talk more about this later, but for now I suppose we now have a teenager sitting in our study that needs to be attended to."
Miranda walked back into the dining room, ushering the twins upstairs with a commanding suggestion that they go take their sister and help her get ready for bed. Mia, too young to understand the tension in the room whined about bed, but went off with Caroline and Cassidy nonetheless.
Andy took a deep breath, grabbed up the plate she had fixed and exited the kitchen, heading for the study. Miranda fell in step beside her, cold fury radiating off of her, steps more clipped than normal. Andy knew that Miranda wouldn't take it out of Bex, but she worried just a little bit. She was always so defensive around things that she thought would destroy her carefully assembled world.
They walked in together and Bex looked up at them. Her eyes widened greatly, the usual expression of awe of anyone who knew who Miranda was and got to meet her plastered itself on her face.
"You're the editor-in-chief of Runway." Bex hurriedly stood. "Oh my god."
The corners of Miranda's mouth twitched up. "I am the editor-in-chief of Runway, but I am most certainly not god." She stretched at hand out. "Miranda Priestly, though since you know who I am already, my introductions are a bit redundant. However, young lady, who exactly might you be?"
"Um, Rebecca Stephens, but most people call me Bex."
"Rebecca, a very classic name." Miranda nodded.
Andy stepped forward with the plate of food and water and handed it to Bex. "She won't call you by your nickname no matter what you say. I've been married to her for six years and have known her for eight and I still haven't been able to get her to call me Andy."
"Because Andrea is a perfectly acceptable name." Miranda's eyes swept over Andy critically. "And tell me, darling, why a fifteen year old knew about me right off, yet someone who was coming to an interview for me had no idea who I was."
Andy scowled and stepped back from Bex, motioning for the girl to sit. Miranda walked to her normal chair and sat regally. Andy took the chair across from Bex, knowing that this would probably make the conversation ahead easier.
Bex sat down, seeking out a coaster for her water before setting it down and putting the plate carefully in her lap. She pushed the food on the plate around for a minute before hunger won out and she started to eat. Andy just stared at her the whole time. She never imagined that this day would come. She hadn't even thought about the little girl she gave up much since that day in college. She had gotten her closure.
But the girl in front of her hadn't. And that was exactly why she was here.
"How'd you find me?" Andy asked once Bex had swallowed a bite of food.
"Internet, you can find anything you want there, really. It took some digging, but eventually I found out what I needed." Bex stared at her food intensely.
"You never answered me earlier, do your parents know you're here?"
The girl shoved another bite of food in her mouth to buy her a few seconds to think. Andy knew the tactic well. The twins were masters at it. Once upon a time she had been as well.
"Uh, well, I may have told them that I was going on a trip with some friends and their family to Mexico and wouldn't have cell service." Bex rubbed the back of her neck and suddenly Andy was back to being a teenager again infatuated with that gesture and the popular boy it went with. She shook herself. God she had been so stupid.
Miranda spoke up. "You need to call them immediately then. You planned this well enough that they think they know where you are and won't worry, but I won't allow you to delude your parents any longer. If they try to check in with the family of the people you say you went with they will be out of their minds with worry."
Bex blushed and tucked her chin to her chest. "I told them I'd call when I could."
"And if you believe they wouldn't try to check in before that, you weren't thinking. Mothers worry incessantly." Miranda stood, dug into her pockets and pulled out her cell phone. She held it towards Bex. "Since you've probably turned your own phone off, here. Call them now, please."
Andy looked over at Miranda and bit the inside of her lip. She was in total mother bear mode. This was the woman who brought down whole entire newspaper departments for publishing pictures of their children with ease. She was deadly like this and there wasn't any way that Andy could love her more.
Bex took the phone and dialed the number by memory. She held the phone up to her ear, posture extremely straight and so very tense. It rang twice before someone picked up.
"Mom?" Bex asked. There was a pause. "Uh, yeah, I'm kind of not in Mexico." Another shorter pause. "I'm in New York."
Miranda nodded at the girl and resumed her seat, satisfied for now that the girl was doing the right thing and would require no further coercion.
"Uh, yeah, I kind of went to go find my birth mother?" Her voice rose progressively towards the end, making the statement into a question.
"Mom, mom, I swear, I'm fine." Short pause. "No, I didn't get mugged, mom. It's really not that bad here. She lives in a good part of the city and I'm not stupid. I swear I'm fine, all in one piece, ten fingers and toes." Another short silence. "I know we discussed it. I was just…I had to meet her, ok and I knew you guys would sit me down for another talk about it so…"
Bex sighed quietly. "Yeah, I'm aware. I'll text you the address in a minute when I turn my phone back on." She blinked up at Andy. The next second she was holding out the phone to her. "Mom wants to talk to you."
Andy took the phone and held it up to her ear, not sure what to expect at all. "Hello?"
"You're really Andrea Sachs."
"I am."
The older woman on the line sighed. "And what she says is true, she is okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine. Not exactly a lot of crime on the Upper East Side."
The woman let out a surprised noise. "Well, you've certainly come a long way, haven't you?"
Andy swallowed hard. She knew that the parents had gotten very basic information about her, but still that hurt a bit more than it should. "We all have our obstacles to overcome."
"My daughter is not an obstacle." Her voice was fierce.
"I didn't say she was. The obstacle was my own stupidity." Miranda looked at her pointedly. "I'm exactly sure I've overcome it quite yet, but I'm learning."
That settled both her wife and the woman on the phone. "I'm coming to get my daughter, can I trust you to take care of her? Not that I have much choice in the matter, but I want to hear you say that I can."
"You can, I have three of my own. I'll take care of her."
"Good. I'll be there as soon as possible, hopefully by morning. And if she isn't in one piece I don't care how much money you have I will end you."
Andy snorted at that and looked over at Miranda. "You sound a lot like my wife."
"Yes, well, hand the phone back to my daughter."
Andy handed it back not exactly sure what she felt about the conversation she just had. The woman had been fiercely protective and Bex had the look of a well taken care of, well loved kid. From the surface it looked exactly like what she had wanted for the girl.
Bex quickly said goodbye to her mother and handed Miranda's phone back to the other woman. She pulled out her own phone and powered it up, sending her mother the address of the townhouse. She put the mostly empty plate of food on the table in front of her. She looked up at Andy when she was done, looking like she had so many questions but didn't know where to start.
"Mom, Mia's down for the night, thinks she can hang with the—" Cassidy cut off two steps into the room when she spotted Bex. "Oh, um, hi?" Cassidy said.
"Um, hi," Bex said back.
Cassidy looked to her mothers questioningly.
Andy ran her hand through her hair. "Cassidy…" she trailed off. She didn't even begin to know where to start.
Miranda, however, cut right to the chase. "It seems that your mother had a child when she was fourteen years old. She's now sought out her biological mother. Cassidy, this is Rebecca Stephens."
Bex swallowed. "Just call me Bex," she said awkwardly.
"Bex, hi." Cassidy extended her hand. Bex took it and shook, looking at the other girl warily. Their hands dropped a second later and Cassidy looked straight at Andy.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Her eyes were narrowed just like Miranda's had been earlier.
"Cassidy, go get your sister, I do believe all five of us must talk and I do so deplore having to repeat myself." Miranda crossed her legs and settled into her chair.
Cassidy nodded and walked calmly from the room, going silently up the stairs. And that was how Andy knew she was in for it. Cassidy was much like her mother in how she got angry. She was loud and exuberant in life, but when angered she was quiet, calm, and absolutely lethal. Caroline was somewhere in the middle depending on just how angry she was, but all Priestly women had some level of fury that led them to become quiet and it never was pretty.
Andy swallowed hard and looked at Bex who was so completely out of her depth and looking scared yet again. Andy wanted to tell her that it would be fine, but she didn't quite know. She had kept a huge secret from her family and she wasn't quite sure how it would work out.
Caroline and Cassidy came back down and sat together in one large chair, bodies squished together. Caroline wasn't as bad off as Cassidy, but she was still looking over Andy as if she wasn't sure what to do with her. Andy fought the urge to hang her head. These were her children. She couldn't turn belly up that easily.
Bex cleared her throat. "Um, since no one really knows anything can I just start asking questions? I'm sure a lot of them are the same as the ones everyone has." She looked around for agreement.
Caroline and Cassidy glanced at each other and nodded once. Miranda waited for their nod before nodding herself. Andy suddenly felt very alone in the room, watching mother and daughters as one united front against her.
"Um," Bex rubbed her neck again. "I guess the really big one is just why? Why did you give me up?"
Andy took in a shaky breath. "I was fourteen, as Miranda said. I couldn't take care of a kid and I knew it. It would just be my parent's raising the kid for me and I couldn't do that to them and yet I couldn't make it on my own, not at fourteen. I wouldn't have had a job for another two years and then what I would've had would've been a minimum wage job and I didn't know if I could maintain that and going to high school and if I didn't have a high school degree I wouldn't have any sort of job that would have offered any sort of life to a child. I knew that basically that meant I had to get the kid adopted, that was the only option that would allow for a live that was good for either of us."
Bex bit her lip hard enough to turn it bright white. "Why didn't you just have an abortion if it was like that? Were you against them?"
Andy shook her head. "No, I'm very pro-choice, but by the time I knew I was pregnant it was too late for that option. I was stupid, I didn't know the signs of pregnancy. Sex education in Ohio at the time wasn't exactly very educational. I thought I was just gaining weight, but I wasn't. Well, I mean I was, but, you know."
Bex nodded. "But how did you end up pregnant at fourteen?"
Andy closed her eyes. "Like I said, sex education wasn't very educational. There was this boy, that's how all stories like that start I guess, and he was popular and I was fourteen and stupid and caught up in him and that he was would like the bookish girl. We started to date and he pushed for it to get physical pretty quickly. I thought it was ok as long as he didn't go inside and turns out, that's really not true. He broke up with me a couple months afterward and he never really knew about the whole thing. Or he pretended not to. I know he saw me walking around late in the pregnancy and it was rather obvious. But he didn't ever say anything and I was too stupid to."
"Did you ever think about keeping me, even once?"
Andy hated to do it, but she shook her head. "No, I really didn't. I was fourteen and scared out of my mind and maybe a little selfish at the same time as I wanted the best for you I wanted what was best for me. And I knew that wasn't going to be raising a kid a fourteen."
Bex swallowed the information down like a bitter pill. "Did you ever regret giving me up?"
"No, not really." She sighed. "I never stopped thinking about it through high school and into college. In college I went back and used some of the journalism skills I had to find you. You were happy and bright and carefree. After that, it was sort of closure for me. You were happy and so was I. I didn't really think about it much after that."
She felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her and she felt her palms sweating. The urge to throw up was strong. This was why she never revisited this subject. She always got like this, at least she had before she had seen Bex in college. Now it was back in full force and she so wished it wasn't. She didn't know if she could get through this.
"Was there something wrong with me? I mean, you have daughters now. Why couldn't…just what was…" Bex trailed off, tears in her eyes.
"Caroline and Cassidy are my biological daughters, Rebecca. They did not become Andrea's daughters until after she was out of college and a few years after that." Miranda sat forward now, looking for all the world like she wanted to comfort the girl in front of her but didn't know if it was acceptable.
"There was absolutely nothing wrong with you, Bex. When you were born I thought you were perfect, but I was too young. That was the only reason I gave you away. It was all my problem and had nothing to do with you."
Bex sniffed. "Who's Mia, then?"
Andy took a deep breath in. "She's my other biological daughter. She just turned five about a month ago. And if I'd had you at twenty-four with a stable job and a wife I would have kept you as well, but those weren't the circumstances and I couldn't keep you like I kept Mia."
Bex nodded. "Ok."
Andy didn't think it was ok at all. The girl still looked like every word she was saying was ripping out a part of her.
"Bex, you may not believe me, but I would've kept you if I could've. But listen to me, do you love your parents?"
Bex nodded again. "I do."
"Could you imagine life without them?"
This time Bex shook her head. "No."
"And they love you very much."
"They do, a lot."
"They planned for you, they chose you, you are their daughter through and through and you would not have had that if I hadn't given you up. I can't change anything I've done, but if I could would you really want to give them up?"
Bex thought about it for a minute. "No, I don't think I would."
Andy nodded. "Exactly. They are exactly what I wished for when I gave you to the nurse. You are a beautiful young woman and they are the ones who did that. I had nothing to do with it. I understand that you needed to know everything you could about me, but I don't really matter, not in the scheme of who you are. Your eyes look like mine, sure, but your parents are the ones who taught you the shapes you were seeing with them, the ones that played peekaboo with you, everything. It wouldn't matter if I never would have kept you at all. What matters is that your parents chose and love you so much."
Bex smiled at that, watery as it was. "Ok, ok." She sighed. "Thank you."
"Of course." Andy offered her own brittle smile in return. She sat back and relaxed for just a second before Cassidy spoke up.
"But why didn't you tell us about her?" Her voice was icy. "Kind of a big secret to leave out, especially when we're like what, one, two years older than she is? Were we just your replacement children or something?"
Andy shot an apologetic glance that she was going to have to sit through the family crisis that was about to happen. She turned to Cassidy and Caroline.
"Guys, no, that's not it at all. I'm part of your family because I love you and I love your mom."
"Yeah, but from the way she's been reacting this entire time she didn't know anything about it either, did you mom?" Caroline chimed in.
"No, I didn't, not until right after dinner after I sent you off to tend to Mia." Miranda was sitting back again, looking like the Queen of fashion she was.
"So if you love us so much, why didn't you tell us the truth?" Cassidy continued for her sister.
Andy clenched her fists. "Because once I got the closure of seeing Bex happy and healthy I shut everything away in a box because when I talked about it I became a raging mess every single time. I was afraid of becoming like that again. I was afraid that once I opened that Pandor's box I wouldn't be able to ever close it again. I was afraid of this exact reaction, of the anger, of the rejection of the people that I really and truly love with all of my heart, and because I was just hoping honestly that it would never come back to bite me in the ass because what you guys didn't know didn't hurt you. And I know that was a stupid attitude to have, that I should have told you, or at least told your mother because it's what she deserves being my wife, but I didn't because yet again, I'm stupid."
The twins digested this information, glancing at each other, communicating in that silent way they had.
"Why would you ever think we would reject you?" Caroline looked at her, eyes looking through her, dissecting her piece by piece. "Do you not think we truly love you? Because truly loving someone prevents that rejection thing. Sure, we might have been mad, but never actually truly rejected you. So why did you worry?"
"Because at the beginning I wasn't sure about that. And then it had just been so long so I didn't want to bring it up because well." Andy gestured around them to what was happening. "I wanted to avoid the confrontation like this because a lot of questions would be raised as to why I didn't tell you sooner."
"I think it just made it worse for you, darling." Miranda looked at her daughters who nodded in agreement.
"I think I'm beginning to realize that." Andy rubbed her hands over her face. She looked up again and caught Bex looking at her as well. She grimaced. Not exactly how she imagined meeting her long lost child going. She wasn't exactly seeing the best parts of her at the moment and what parent actually wanted that.
She sighed heavily. "I'm sorry for it, I am, but I can't change it."
"What else are you hiding from us that you're just so afraid of our reactions?" Cassidy asked.
"Nothing," she replied immediately. Well, nothing from Miranda. There were some things that the twins never ever needed to know about her. This had been her deepest secret and now that it was out in the open there was nothing left in the world that she was bearing alone as a secret within the townhouse.
"How are we supposed to believe you after this?" Caroline asked quietly.
Andy blinked at the question. It was a good one. It really was. And she had absolutely no answer to it.
"I don't know. I know that it's the truth, but you're right after all this it would be hard to take my word for it. I can't exactly force trust nor would I want to."
The twins sat back in their chair, seemingly satisfied.
Andy looked over at Miranda. She was still sitting defensively. Andy closed her eyes and prayed to every deity she could name that Miranda would forgive her for this.
Miranda stood. "I do believe it's time for bed after an emotional day such as this. Girls, will you show Rebecca to the guest room on your floor and show her where everything is? In the morning we'll talk more of course, but for now."
The twins nodded and stood as one. They looked at Bex, assessing her. "Come on, our rooms are on the second floor," Cassidy said before darting off.
Caroline waited for Bex, but only barely. Andy got the feeling that the girls didn't quite like Bex, but she wasn't sure why. It wasn't like Bex had lied to them. All she had done was showed up and asked a few questions.
Andy gulped once they were gone and turned back to Miranda. Miranda was looking back at her, eyes cold and face hard and unreadable.
"Andrea," she drew out her name to a knife point. "You know my trust is incredibly hard to gain."
Andy nodded silently.
"Then I can't imagine why you would do anything to break it, yet here we are."
Andy knew there was nothing she could say to make it better. Probably if she said anything it would only make it worse. Miranda hated excuses, always had and always will.
"Now I understand your reasoning to a degree, it is frightening to reveal a secret to large. But I am your wife and you are supposed to trust me implicitly as the girls said. I understand that that is hard, I do. After all, I am much the same way, but you know every excoriating detail about me. You have seen me at my worst and you know of everything in-between. Do you know exactly how many of my ex-husbands know about by teenaged past? None of them. You are special Andrea and I thought you thought the same of me, but it seems I have not been given the same consideration."
Miranda stood. "But as I said, it is late and time for bed after an emotional day. So let's go to bed, darling."
Andy nodded and stood, following Miranda out of the study, flicking off lights as she went.
They both got ready for bed quickly and silently before slipping in beside each other. Andy didn't know what the protocol was going to be for the night. Normally the two of them were wrapped around each other from the second they were in bed until the second they left, but tonight was different.
Miranda solved her dilemma for her, scooting to the middle and practically yanking Andy to her. Andy settled around Miranda, sighing. She loved the feeling of Miranda wrapped around her and all against her.
"I still love you, darling, don't worry about that, but I am rather angry and disappointed in you to be certain. That, however, doesn't mean that I don't want you next to me as we sleep, you understand?"
Andy nodded. She did. They both desperately wanted their relationship to work. So much so that they had learned to circumvent normal habits when angry just so they didn't go to bed in the middle of the argument. And it had been so very good for them so far that they didn't dare change anything now.
"Goodnight, Andrea."
"I love you," Andy said in return. "Night.
Miranda laid a kiss on Andrea's head and both of them drifted off to sleep.
The next morning Andy pushed herself out of bed earlier than normal. There were three hungry teenagers and an overactive five year old to feed along with a fashion maven who loved food more than she would ever tell anyone who wasn't in their immediate family. Andy was the one who had to keep the secret stash of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food stocked after all. She always pretended to not know where it went.
She padded downstairs and started to put everything together for French toast. She was grilling the first set of pieces when a knock came at the door. Andy's stomach dropped again as she flipped the pieces and turned the heat way down. She walked towards the door and hoped there weren't going to be any more surprises.
She opened the door to find a well-dressed middle aged woman maybe five to seven years younger than Miranda. "This is the house my Rebecca is at, isn't it?"
Andy nodded. "Yes, she's upstairs still asleep I think. I was just making breakfast for all of them. Come in. The coffee's already done."
The woman nodded and walked in. Andy gestured for her to sit down at the bar while grabbed out a mug. "You like cream or sugar in your coffee."
"Both, please."
Andy grabbed out the cream from the fridge, grabbed a spoon and the sugar bowl and set it in front of the woman. She poured coffee in the mug, leaving room for cream and let the woman fix her own coffee. Andy in the meantime fired back up the griddle and set to work on French toast.
"I suppose I should properly introduce myself. I know a bit about you but you know nothing about me beyond that I'm Bex's mother."
Andy turned and looked at the woman after sliding off the pieces of toast she was working on and putting a few more on.
"My name's Renee Stephens. I adopted Bex when I'd just turned thirty-one with my husband Brice. He's a doctor at OSU hospital. I'm a financial advisor for a company based in Columbus. Bex has been the light of our lives since we got her. And that's really all there is to me."
Andy smiled, flipped the toast over and turned back again. "I'm a journalist, freelance mostly now, though I hold temporary spots at some newspapers when they need me. My wife is the editor-in-chief of Runway. We have three daughters, two a year or so older than Bex, identical twins and one five year old named Mia." She slid off the next pieces and put the last batch on. She turned on the over to warm to keep the French toast nice and hot while she waited for the hoard to wake up.
"Built yourself an interesting life," Renee said again.
"I built myself a happy one. I already knew that Bex had a happy life. There was no reason not to."
"Fourteen is very young."
"Too young."
Renee nodded.
Andy slid the now done French toast into the oven. "Look, I know it must be some sort of worst fear for you, but I'm not about to do anything to try and drive Bex from you. If she wants to keep in touch I'm all for that. If she doesn't I'm fine with that as well. But you are her mother. And nothing about that will ever change no matter if she chooses to talk to me or not."
"Good. I'm glad you have no mistakenly heroic notions that blood and biology somehow are better than everything else."
Andy snorted. "No, that's a stupid ideal. Caroline and Cassidy aren't mine by blood, but they are my daughters no matter what."
She started to make bacon, dragging her one secret pack from the bottom of the fridge. Might as well go whole hog while she was at it. Your long lost daughter only came back out of the blue once.
"I'm sorry she just showed up out of the blue," Renee said, echoing Andy's thoughts. "We had more than a few talks with her about the subject, but she was adamant."
"Teenagers are very much like that. It's no problem. I'm just glad she got here safely."
"Me too." And in that sentence Andy heard all the worry that had kept Renee going through the eight hour drive to the City.
A minute later feet came thundering down the stairs. Caroline and Cassidy were babbling at the top of their lungs as per normal, but there was a different voice mixed in, Bex's. Andy smiled and pulled the toast out of the over. Miranda was probably waking Mia and about to bring her down if the herd was here.
Caroline and Cassidy came in, introduced themselves to Renee and went to set the table with two more place settings than normal. Bex sheepishly hugged her mother hello. Renee hugged her hard for a few long seconds before pulling back and launching into a speech about how worried she was and just how ground Bex was when she got home.
Miranda came down a minute later, leading a five year old by the hand, a content smile on her face. She looked up at the kitchen and smiled still for Andy, hints of her anger still in her eyes, but it was tempered now. She sat Mia down at the table and came over to Renee, talking quietly. It seemed that Renee was where Bex got her love of Runway. The woman lit up talking to Miranda.
Andy busied herself plating everything. She brought the platter of French toast out to the table along with the plate filled with bacon. Cassidy appeared, grabbing orange juice out of the fridge and a large bowl of fruit salad the housekeeper has prepared earlier in the week. Andy smiled at her and thanked her for helping.
A few minutes later all of them were sitting down at the table, eating together. It was odd and more than a little awkward. Mia had no clue what was going on, but rolled with it with all the obliviousness that a five year old could muster, simply smiling and introducing herself before going back to her French toast. Conversation was provided only by the twins and Bex, all conversing about their favorite bands and movies and anything else pop culture that seemed to come to mind. For all that she thought that the girls did not like Bex, they seemed thick as thieves now.
Soon the meal was at an end. Renee was eager to get back on the road again. It was another long eight hours back to Ohio. Miranda tried to convince her to stay, but wasn't successful. Renee wanted to be home and wanted to be with her husband after a long, trying day, so Miranda let them go.
Before they left again, Bex came up to Andy. "Um, is it ok if I get your number? So like, we can text? I mean I got most of my burning questions answered, but I'd like to know more, you know?"
Andy smiled at the girl. "Of course." She took out her phone and they both programmed their numbers into the other's phone.
Bex smiled back at her and considered something for half a second before drawing her into an awkward side hug. She shrugged at Andy afterwards and darted back to her mother's side. Caroline and Cassidy said goodbye and exchanged numbers as well. Andy felt like perhaps out of anything of this experience the girl's had gained a new friend. And maybe that was it and maybe Andy would barely talk to Bex and they would drift apart again.
But then again maybe not.
She waved as their car shot up the street and out into morning traffic. She turned when it was out of sight and cocked an eyebrow at the twins. "I got the distinct feeling last night that you didn't like her. What changed?"
"We didn't," Caroline said. "But then we talked to her and found out she was ok."
They both turned away from Andy and walked inside. That was all the answer that Andy was going to get on that, she was sure. She frowned for a second and then shrugged. Whatever had happened, happened and at least it had a good outcome.
She returned inside to Miranda starting to clean up the mess that was breakfast. The TV in the living room was playing cartoons, that awful Dog with a Blog that Mia seemed to just absolutely love from the sound of it, confirming exactly where Mia had went. She sidled up to Miranda and helped with the dishes, drying and putting away while Miranda washed.
She wasn't quite sure yet if this was one of those times where whatever happened, happened and had a good outcome. She hoped it did.