This chapter covers several months. S-E-V-E-R-A-L months. I am downloading all that has been written to date and will possibly get around to finishing it shortly. I've cut chapters and so if the continuity seems to jerk around, well, the theme remains intact and that's what's important. No 'Sheldon's Women' so us your imaginations to backstory Gisla, Harriet and Leslie. I hope you still think it's a happy ending.
Chapter 22
He fired the nurse shortly after Penny left. 'Fired' wasn't the right term, really. He simply told her that her services were no longer needed, that he would care for his daughter. He softened the blow with a check for 2-weeks in lieu of a notice.
It was awkward at first, learning how to anticipate her needs, her schedules ('she's even more rigid in her schedules than I'), but he learned and together they managed to forge a cooperative of sorts.
"Gracie, we're going to work today and I need your total cooperation if we're going to make this work. Just nod your head if you understand. You do? Good. Daddy's got to teach a bunch of future physicists all about the wonderful world of physics and you, my little stinky-pants, are going to sit in your seat and listen and learn."
He changed her diaper (How can someone so sweet create something so foul?), dressed her for the day, packed 3 additional outfits and enough diapers to supply a small nation and all her supporting gear into her bag and then got himself ready.
"Grace Larson Cooper, I know you're unhappy with me right now but Daddy's got to work and I promise you when we get home, we'll have all the time to play and see just how much you learned in class today."
She looked at him with those huge green eyes and then smiled an almost toothless grin and he suddenly couldn't breathe, felt clammy and short of breath. He sat down and forced himself to relax.
'Of course she looks like her when she smiles. She's her daughter. I need to enjoy her smile and not think about her mother. This is not helping things at all. I can't 'move on' as she requires if everything about Gracie reminds me of her. Her eyes have those same little crows' feet wrinkles at the corners when she grins her toothless heartbreaker.'
CalTech
She was only 3 months old and she cried through almost all of his first lecture until he picked her up and walked back and forth in front of the class of students, lecturing on as if this were an everyday occurrence.
Some of the female grad students thought it was sweet while others wondered how Dr. Cooper managed to find a woman willing to allow herself to be violated and end up being his baby's mother. They would be surprised to know that he had thought the same thing lately.
Together they managed to get through the day without serious mishap. Every day was a little easier than the one before it. Every day he would find something new about her to fill him with wonder. Every day at least one of the girls in his class would offer to hold her and keep her from fussing while he lectured. Every day he missed Penny more and more and every day he cursed himself for his inability to make her happy.
He missed her and Gracie simply could not fill the void. He was lonely. Grace was six months old and filled his days but at night…
Bernadette and Raj offered to babysit at the drop of a hat. Raj was a special favorite of Gracie's and she babbled happily whenever she saw him. She was fascinated by Bernadette's long blonde hair and babbled on and on as she played with the ends of her long tresses.
Sheldon appreciated his friends' interest and caring since occasionally he just couldn't have Gracie with him, such as a haircut or a doctor's appointment.
He drove the Volvo into the garage and ran into the house trying to run between the raindrops. Bernadette was watching Grace while he had his annual physical required by the University's wellness program.
"Sheldon! She pulled herself up on her two little feet and used the couch to walk across the living room. She's getting to be such a big girl." Eight month old Gracie was bouncing up and down on her lap and reaching for Sheldon.
"Damn! I missed her first steps! I knew it would happen when I wasn't here. I wanted to video it for the Larsons and my mom."
It wasn't all sweetness and light. At seven months, Gracie now understood that she could see something she wanted and get it, even if it meant crawling across the floor and maybe falling on her face a time or two. She didn't understand about lamp cords and she scared the crap out of Sheldon one night when she pulled the lamp on the end table down on her. She wasn't hurt, just scared, but Sheldon berated himself for not taping down the lamp cords.
She sat quietly on her dad's lap when he Skyped with the Larsons but erupted into giggles and babbles when the screen displayed her grandparents. She'd learned to blow kisses and wave earlier and so she entertained them with babbling nonsense and kisses while her father tried to talk or listen.
She also learned that if she slammed the lid of Sheldon's laptop computer that everyone went 'bye bye' and she killed a lot of conversations by reaching out and slamming the lid and babbling on happily.
But not even Sheldon could anticipate Fate and her damned fickle finger.
Larson Farms
Small town outside Omaha, Nebraska
One Saturday afternoon he was working at home on his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize and he'd carried Gracie into the kitchen while he made some tea. He only had his back turned for a second and she was gone, crawling and scuttling across the quarry tile floor and heading back into the living room where she'd left her stuffed elephant that Raj had given her. She and the elephant were inseparable and she wanted it.
She pulled herself up using the coffee table, the elephant forgotten, and began typing and playing with the wireless mouse and somehow, some way, she called her grandparents.
Jenny and Wyatt had wisely moved the Skype connection from the laptop in their living room to the computer in the farm office. Penny's breakdown when she overheard Sheldon speaking with her parents made them decide that such a move was in everyone's best interests.
Penny was working on entering some grain storage billing data into a database when the Skype connection was made and the irritating sound of the 'phone' ringing made her click on 'answer'. She hadn't ever used Skype before and just clicked on 'answer with video' thinking it was one of the farm's more sophisticated customers or shippers.
Gracie crowed with delight when she saw Penny on the screen and started babbling her newest favorite sound in the world and clapping her hands and reaching for the screen.
"Mum-mum-mum-mum."
She heard Sheldon call out "Grace Larson Cooper, what are you doing now?" and knew that he hadn't 'set her up'.
No. This was Fate, God, the Universe, trying to right a wrong.
"Gracie, baby, hi, I'm your…I'm your mommy. You're so big…and so pretty." She was trying not to cry. She didn't want to upset her baby girl any more than she already had by being gone from her life.
"Gracie, I turn my back for one second…Jenny, Wyatt, I'm sorry for the interruption." He saw the video confernce screen and assumed... "She just – oh, it's you." His tone of voice gave away his surprise and dismay at seeing her instead of his almost-ex-in-laws.
"Hi, Shel." She couldn't think of anything to say. Her therapist had her role playing a situation where a chance encounter occurred but she never thought - .
"Gracie, here's your elephant that Uncle Raj gave you. And yes, that's 'Mum-mum-mum'. Say 'hello', Gracie. Can you say 'hi'?"
He picked her up and sat her on his lap so that Penny could see how big she was but couldn't see him above the shoulders. He tried not to look at her but just a glance told him that she was thinner and that her hair was a lot longer.
"She loves her elephant but forgets to drag it along with her. I was in the kitchen and one minute she's hanging on my pants leg and the next she's scuttling in here to find her elephant. She's crawling now and she can pull herself up using the furniture. She'll be walking soon and that will create a whole new dimension for me to deal with."
She could hear the tint of bitterness in his tone but he wasn't the kind of guy to lash out and hurt her just because he had to deal with being two parents 24/7.
"She's so big, Shelly. And she's smart, too. I can tell."
"I don't care if she's dumb as a box of rocks. Like I told you a year ago, she's not a science experiment. She's my daughter and I love her." He stared at her and then reached for the laptop lid to close it and end the near-rupture of his heart.
"I have to finish my speech for Stockholm and then begin packing up for our trip. She's a clothes horse, aren't you, Gracie? If you want to call her, please do it before 7:45. That's her bedtime."
"Sheldon, can we talk for just a few minutes?"
"No, Penny. I said everything I had to say on the video recording I sent along with your clothes. Are you ready to come home, Penny? It's a big house. We probably won't even see each other except on occasion but I'd like Gracie to have a mother figure in her life. You could continue your therapy here and be part of Grace's life and I would, of course, continue to pay you a stipend as we originally agreed."
He wanted her home. Maybe she could finally tell him what he'd done that was so wrong that she had to cut herself off from them and leave. He could fix it. He could fix anything – except his broken heart.
She hadn't had the courage to look at the DVD recording. It was still in her mom's laptop in the house.
"Sheldon, I-I can't – "
Gracie leaned forward and grabbed the lid of the laptop and slammed it shut, chortling with glee as only an 8-month old can.
"Gracie – No!" She heard both her parents shout but it was too late.