When did you know?

Lena looks at Callie, wondering if the girl ever made it to bed or, after the ruckus of graduation had calmed down, spent the rest of the night wandering the house moving from room to room her mind racing,

Truthfully Lena finds the whole topic exhausting, she is not crazy about the answer she has to give either, or even sure that sharing it would help.

"When did you know?" Callie asks again a little louder, as if Lena didn't hear the first time.

So they stand there, Callie waiting, not in any hurry, kind-of enjoying this moment, alone time with her mama.

Lena not so much.

She sighs

"Stef made up her mind on the way back from San Ysidro!" is her careful response.

Callie raises her eyebrows the surprise evident on her face. Her lips form a thin line as she keeps eyeing the woman.

Silence, but its weighted, they both know more needs to come.

So, Lena continues.

"I think it took her about 5 miles of driving to really process everything; what you did, Jude, Brandon. At some point she was so distracted we were only doing 35 on I-5. But after that It was pretty much a done deal." She smiles.

Callie looks at her not with hostility, but not satisfied either.

"When did you know?"

Four syllables rapped out in that cadence. Lena can't escape it she's cornered, right here in her house. "Your making a question, but it sound's like a statement." She immediately regrets the resentment in her voice.

Callie grunts and looks at the women, her mama. Both mom's they're Greek God's to her, Zeus and Juno. Fallible but immortal. They do and know things she can only imagine. Though lately...she's been wondering.

She tips her head to the side, looking at the older woman. She wants to know, but there is an amused smile in her eyes. She bring a thumb to her mouth and unconsciously gnaws on it. "You haven't answered the question, you know."

"I know," Lena nods acknowledging , laughing a little at her self, hating that she couldn't just give the girl what she wanted. Yet she doesn't want to admit that her love grew slowly at first. That it was hard and scary and not at all normal, that although Lena wants to be soft and giving, it takes work. And at least partly, her warmth is crafted. Oh hell, they already had three kids, no one blithely, signs up for five.

The literature says 'don't give kids your worries.' Her PHD class work in clinical psychology reinforced that and actually taught how to bury your feelings,- and so enable others to discover their own.

lAnd Late stage adoption kids are fragile. There is a whole chapter in the DSM dedicated to them. ACES. PTSD, Reactive Attachment. Kids like Callie need reassurance, and as much constancy as you can provide. It is suppose to be love at first sight. Instantaneous. The family should be something given, simply meant to be. Something permanent, waiting to be expressed by the child's arrival, as natural as a birth mothers love. .

Only its not how it happened. And Lena's gut tells her a text book answer would sound false, like she was hiding something. Not that she wouldn't like to have that have happened. But life is messy.

She is still stalling for time, Lena feels, what? Guilty? About what? That she was furious with the girl for putting the family in danger. And that when Kelsey accused Callie of selling drugs her first reaction was to Call Bill to come get both kids. She wanted them "OUT-OF-THE -HOUSE."

Thank God, instead she picked-up the phone and called Stef. "You have to at least hear the girls side of the story, Lena." And so she listened and learned.

And now she can't even start to count sacrifices she's made for this elusive string bean of a child, nor for that matter the gifts the girl has graced her with. She would do it all again gladly.

So she turns back to the pictures, the twins age 7 stare at her. Jesus sitting cockily, arm draped over Mariana's shoulder, his eyes wide and dark like a puppy's, Mariana's blank and somber.

"I've read that people are wired to love babies. Just the look of big eyes and bubbly head sets the oxytocin pumping. We didn't get that chance with you." She sighs.

"Mom saw you in that house and as we drove back, got the whole thing. It just fell into place for her."

Callie just nods, she has her own memories of that day. Certainly no little part of it is an endless 20 minute ride in a dark car with stef's intense blue eyes searing into her every time she looked into the rear view mirror.

" She was the first person who stood-up for me." She pauses "In the house ,"and just stops, shuts down.

Lena feels her heart breaking, even 3 years on Calli can't talk directly about some things. "Good god" she thinks to herself, "a fifteen year old had a gun waved in her face and I wanted to throw the girl away because I resented having to witness it while sitting in the safety of my car?"

Callie, however, is lost in her own world and is speaking as much to the wall of pictures as she is to Lena, "I knew what she did wasn't just for me, but.. I thought I was going to be shot and then..." her voice trails off.

There is quiet between them and they stand together in the pre-dawn grey,

Lena picks-up the thread gently soft stepping around the fact that she will never have Stef's super hero MO. She is resigned to walking quietly, plod,plod plod. A contrast to Stef 's ability to leap amazingly into the unknown. "Well Mom,.. right!" And she stops there, because this conversation was never about Stef..

"For me it was more gradual. It grew... like, you grew." And words she had been racking her brains to find, now roll effortlessly out of her mouth. After all its her story, their story. A parent talking with her young adult daughter tracing the outlines their love has drawn around each others life. Jealousies, arguments, the imperfections are in some ways not just part of the picture but the picture itself.

"It was little things, sitting on our bed playing monopoly, how all the kids trusted you."

Callie looks at Lena. Eyebrows raised , not exactly in disbelief, but..

"Don't scoff, off course there were bumps, we're human, and I know you went out of your way to keep the peace. Don't think we didn't see you walking around as if the floor was made of egg shells, but you were never, mean. A little cold, and hard, but never mean. You never pile on."

"There is just little things I remember, the night before the Quinciera the way you reacted to my mom's gifts, weird little things."

Lena inhales, sharply, " I guess, I knew, really knew, at the hospital." her voice breaks. She can never talk about the shooting without crying "They only allowed direct relatives to see stef, and the twins were so scared and guilty they looked frozen, but when i looked at them I couldn't' get the image of them at 5 out of my head. And I looked at you standing next to Mariana and I thought thank god your, safe, and I got this clarity. No matter what happens, You were our daughter, Jude was our son. Period. Everything else was ...I don't know...details?

Callie nods quietly, "It takes time, I mean its odd, to just become someone's child"

Lena feels her heart thumping, flushed with pride that she is a part of this kids life. That together they've built something so sturdy Callie can risk this conversation. Can say that her love is complex and changeable and that it is not out of a story book or Disney film, but that it is still something solid and tangible.

" I mean Stef in the house was amazing, but ...feeling like I was your daughter...It sort of piled up, sneaked up on me with out realizing."

"What I remember most is sitting on the bed locked in that stupid room at that woman's house thinking, this is crazy they just took me away from my mom's'.

She looks directly at Lena. "I was angry!" she pauses, "At the system, and at you both for being so careless, but I never once doubted you'd come for me. It was an uncanny feeling ,to all of a sudden realize, to know deep down that I was going to be missed."

Lena wipes her eyes, "We did," and she laughs, pausing, "I will." Callie 's hand is warm and solid against her as morning light refracts through the cut glass on the door scattering red yellow and green stripes onto the floor.

They stand together looking at the photos.

Yet her mind has moved on. She is thinking about breakfast for seven and If Stef has discovered that Lena is not in bed, and what time Jude, her grumpy gawky adolescent, will wake-up.

She tugs at Callie's hand , leading her through the kitchen and then out to the back yard. The sun has already risen above the tree line, and is too bright to look directly at without hurting your eyes.

If she was alone, she would do a cartwheel. She wonders smiling too herself, just how many dinner tables THAT tale would be embellished and retold. 'Crazy Lena, whose still waters run deep.'

"You know, When ,isn't what matters," she says. She doesn't want to negate the girl but she has to communicate this, Callie needs to understand it, its urgent and there is so little time left that they will spend together.

Callie is watching her intently, her eyes are glistening.

" This is what matters, today," Lena makes a sweeping gesture with her one free arm, pivoting outward with her whole body while Pulling Callie into her with her other arm . She nods her head and smiles, " and tomorrow."

She lets go of Callie hand. A boat casting off to a beautiful sea.

Then takes a step ...