Loved and Wanted

By Jeune Ecrivain

Rating: T

Summary: The first time Lizzie calls Ellie "Mom" doesn't happen in English, but in Spanish. Somehow, if anything, that actually means more to Ellie.

Ellie knew the second honeymoon period had to end eventually, but she still wished it could have been in a less public place. After convincing Lizzie to stay with her and Pete after Carla had relapsed into her drug addiction, about a month of heightened familial bliss had followed. While Lita and Juan were both relieved and happy that they would not have to leave the Wagner household after all, it was immediately obvious that Lizzie was the most profoundly affected by the incident in the neighbor's yard. Their eldest foster child finally seemed to believe, or at least seriously entertain the possibility, that her foster parents genuinely wanted her in their lives for keeps, baggage and all. While Lizzie had always respected Pete and Ellie as people, it was not until this turning point that she came to respect them as authority figures. Ellie was not naïve enough to think that she had seen the last of Lizzie's rebellious side, but she did suspect that at least the worst of it was behind them.

For now, however, Lizzie was not the problem. It was Lita, who had apparently decided it was time for another impromptu demand for a particular toy under threat of a loud and embarrassing tantrum. It was essentially the Barbie fiasco all over again!

"No! I don't wanna wait for my birthday!" the little spitfire cried, maintaining a vise-like grip on the coveted Ken doll. "I want it now! I'm not leaving until we get it!" She stomped her foot, crossed her arms, and pouted. It would have almost been cute if it were not also frustrating and more than a little inconvenient.

Ellie closed her eyes and exhaled momentarily, fully aware that Lizzie was quietly watching and fully prepared to step in if she asked. This was the first time Ellie had felt any serious temptation to make such a request for help, but she suspected that it would be unwise to continually depend on Lizzie to discipline her younger siblings, so she resisted. She also resisted the temptation to cave. She had already done that once, and she knew that making a habit of it would only spoil Lita. Instead, Ellie spoke in the firmest tones she could muster as she pried the package out of the child's hands for the umpteenth time. "Lita,…"

The little girl screamed indignantly, making Ellie wince at the attention they were undoubtedly attracting.

"Lita!" Ellie raised her voice, which at least succeeded in momentarily silencing her youngest foster daughter. "You will not scream like that again. Do you hear me? You already have two dolls at home to play with. You don't need another one. In fact, I might take them away from you for a while if you keep acting like this."

"No!" yelled Lita. "I want Malibu Ken! Barbie misses him!" She lunged for the toy again, crying and kicking as her foster mother held her back with both arms.

Ellie groaned and met Lizzie's gaze, and the teen responded with a questioning look. Words of deferral were on the tip of her tongue, but then, a fortuitous thought struck her. Among the many times she had seen Lita abruptly rendered compliant by her sister's intervention, there was, in most cases, one more common factor besides the identity of the person doling out the discipline. She was skeptical that it would work as well for her as it seemed to for Lizzie, but at this point, she was willing to try anything. She knew it likely would not be perfect by any means, but all it had to be was good enough to at least startle Lita into obedience. She planted the little girl back on her feet, looked straight into her eyes, and spoke in sharp tones. "Lita Isabela Viara, escúchame."

Lita suddenly fell silent, and Lizzie's eyes widened in surprise.

The girls' foster mother continued slowly. "Aquí está lo que vas a hacer. Vas a callarte ahorita, vas a dejar a Ken, y vamos todos a salir de esta tienda en paz. Cuando llegamos a casa, vas a darme tu Barbie, y ya no la tendrás para una semana. Y si no me obedeces en todo, sin quejarte ni un poco, tomaré también a Potato Chips. ¿Me entiendes?"

Ellie heard Lizzie breathe two Spanish words of her own, and while she recognized "santa," she made a mental note to ask her foster daughter later what "mierda" meant, though given the tone, she already had an inkling. In any case, Lita nodded, at least for the moment still too stunned to protest. "Okay," she released Lita, rose to her full height, and proceeded with her originally planned transaction.

Lita spoke not a word throughout the car ride home, and while Lizzie was a bit more talkative, it was never about what had just transpired, though Ellie did notice the pensive glances her foster daughter gave her during lulls in the conversation.

When they returned to their house, a mere stern look from her foster mother was all it took for Lita to retrieve her Barbie doll and surrender it. Ellie's face softened as she took the toy, wanting to remind the child that she was still loved despite the need for disciplinary action. "You'll get her back in a week," she said softly, daring to return to English for the first time.

Lita trudged back to her room, and she was barely out of earshot before Lizzie rounded on her guardian. "Okay, seriously, what the hell happened in there?"

Ellie was hardly surprised at Lizzie's outburst. "Well, sweetie, it suddenly hit me that whenever you discipline Lita, you almost always do it in Spanish, so I decided to try it and see if it might work for me. I wouldn't be surprised if I flubbed a few things with grammar or pronunciation, but anyway, Lita seems to have gotten the message, and that's all I need right now."

Lizzie narrowed her eyes at her. "You've been holding out on me! I know you guys have been trying to learn, and Pete's making progress, but what you said in the store is leaps and bounds ahead of where he is!"

Ellie gave her a knowing smile. "Well, to be fair, I had a couple years of Spanish in high school. I did well enough, I suppose, but I wasn't exceptional, and I didn't really appreciate it at the time. I honestly thought I'd forgotten it all, but apparently, alot of it just went dormant until I found a reason to pick it up again."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to surprise you. Pete and I both did. We've been studying together late at night for a while now. I hope he doesn't mind that I spoiled it for you, but I just didn't know what else to try with Lita."

Lizzie smirked. "I think he'll understand. Besides, if anything, he's probably more annoyed that you have such a head-start over him."

"Eh, he does have an enviable knack for memorizing vocabulary, though," Ellie admitted. "I'm more of a grammar girl. Basically, he's better at knowing the raw words, and I'm better at conjugating them and arranging them into at least passable sentences."

"It shows," Lizzie chuckled.

"Thanks. That means alot to me." Ellie's warm smile faded a bit as she sighed. "I'm not sure how long the effect on Lita will last, though. With you, she seems to associate Spanish with extra seriousness, but in my case, she may have just been so shocked that she didn't know what else to do but obey. If it was just shock, I only hope she'll have learned her lesson before the novelty wears off."

Lizzie then bit her lip for a moment before speaking in slightly more sober tones. "Ellie, seriously, though, thank you for bothering to even try it. I mean, I never gave my heritage much thought, and speaking Spanish was never really anything special for me, but still,…somehow,…" She trailed off briefly as she searched for the right words. "I guess, if you were looking for a way to drive home to me that you guys really are in this for the long haul, even more than you already have,…I think you found a really good one."

"Oh, sweetie! Now I really wish Pete were here to have heard that, 'cause that's about the best response I ever could've hoped for!" Ellie shook her head in awe before smiling warmly again. "You know, there is one thing I really love about the language."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"My greatest wish is that all three of you kids feel both loved and wanted in this house. I know you still find it a little hard to believe, but Pete and I really do love you. But we also want you, in a way that I don't think any of your previous fosters ever did, which breaks my heart. That's why I like the verb 'querer.' It means both 'to want' and 'to love,' so in a way, it allows me to say both of those things at the same time when I say,…'Te quiero.' Te quiero, m'hija." She amended the second iteration with the affectionate appellation, because she had just recently realized that it at least originated as nothing more than a contraction that literally translated to "my daughter," and she was not going to pass up the opportunity to remind Lizzie that she saw her as exactly that: her daughter.

Lizzie blinked, her eyes moistening as she paused in her response, and Ellie could tell she was deep in thought about something. She was about to ask what had her so pensive again when Lizzie finally nodded to herself as her lips curled into a shy smile. "Yo te quiero a ti también,…Mamá."

Ellie could now feel her own eyes moistening. "Did you just…?"

The teen let out a wet laugh. "Yeah, I did,…Mom."

With that, the moisture turned into full-fledged tears. "I'm not sure which part of that sentence means more to me right now!" She stepped forward and embraced her young ward, warmed to feel her immediately return the hug, a move which, just a short time ago, would have been quite out of character. It was heartwarming enough when Lita and Juan started calling her and Pete "Mom(my)" and "Dad(dy)," but Lizzie was a teenager who had a much more established bond with her biological mother and did not trust easily due to a lifetime of broken promises. Ellie had overheard Lizzie call them her "parents" while talking with her friends a couple of weeks ago, but even that was merely referential, and there was no way to be sure it was even the first time or a particularly conscious choice. Hearing her use "Mom" vocatively, for what was clearly the first time and a very deliberate decision, was something else entirely.

"I'm sorry it took so long," Lizzie said as they pulled apart and wiped their eyes.

"Hey," Ellie immediately rebuked her with unexpected firmness. "Don't you apologize. You weren't ready. I completely understand. In fact, the moment would've been seriously tainted if I thought for a second you were doing it just because you felt obligated or pressured. In a way, I'm actually glad it took you this long."

The teen looked confused and potentially a little hurt. "Why?"

With a warm smile, the older woman reassured her. "Because up until a week or two ago, I could tell you were still really angry at Carla, maybe for the first time. I know she's let you down before, but you and I both know you had a much harder time looking past it this time. You've forgiven her so many times almost automatically, because despite everything, she's your mother, and you love her. But when she broke your heart a month ago, it was like…that love wasn't enough anymore. Forgiveness won't come as easily now, and that's okay. You have every right to feel that way. I just…would've felt terrible if you'd started calling me 'Mom' just to spite Carla."

Lizzie shook her head. "I never would've thought of it that way, and I promise that's not why I did it just now." She emitted a wry chuckle. "I am still kinda mad at her, though."

"I know, and again, that's fine, as long as you can put the worst of your anger behind you. Just remember what we talked about a week after it happened. Don't rule out the possibility of ever reconciling with her in the future."

Despite the mood, Lizzie interjected a playful roll of her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Although I still don't quite understand why you of all people defended her at all."

"Oh, believe me, I'm by no means a fan of hers either!" Ellie replied. "She broke my daughter's heart, after all!" She took great contentment in the subtle way the teenager's eyes lit up upon being referred to in such terms yet again. "But it's clear to me that, for all her failings, she really does love you, and that being the case, the best thing for you is to at least be open to repairing the relationship someday, if and when you're both ready." With a sigh, the woman put on a much more light-hearted but no less genuine smile in hopes of bringing some levity to the conversation. "Now, since el gato está fuera de la bolsa, I expect you to help Pete and me out while we're still learning, starting with a question I have for you."

"What's that?"

"What does 'mierda' mean?"

Lizzie laughed out loud.

Translations:

"Lita Isabela Viara, escúchame." = "Lita Isabela Viara, listen to me."

"Aquí está lo que vas a hacer. Vas a callarte ahorita, vas a dejar a Ken, y vamos todos a salir de esta tienda en paz. Cuando llegamos a casa, vas a darme tu Barbie, y ya no la tendrás para una semana. Y si no me obedeces en todo, sin quejarte ni un poco, tomaré también a Potato Chips. ¿Me entiendes?" = "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to shut up right now, you're going to leave Ken behind, and we're all going to get out of this store in peace. When we get home, you're going to give me your Barbie, and you won't have her anymore for one week. And if you don't obey me in everything, without complaining even a little, I will take Potato Chips too. Do you understand me?"

"¡Santa mierda!" = "Holy shit!"

"Te quiero. Te quiero, m'hija." = "I love you. I love you, my daughter."

"Yo te quiero a ti también, Mamá." = "I love you too, Mom."

"el gato está fuera de la bolsa" = literally "The cat is out of the bag," though the corresponding Spanish idiom is probably not such a direct translation of the English.