Author Note:
Hey guys, hope you enjoy this next one. It was nice to return to writing from Callie's perspective after having her mostly go silent over the last few chapters. As many of you already suspect, she has a ways to go before finding her voice again.
Yes, she did tell Lena that she loved her for the first time in the last chapter and I agree that is a milestone.
Thanks to everyone who's reading, PM'ing, and reviewing. I love the questions and different perspectives that get brought up; they always stay with me when I'm shaping my content. AchillesMonkey, AllyCallie, thesameguest, fadingreality, wallscollide, meyouthem123, and theypreferthetermpeople have been extremely patient sounding boards as I work out the tone for the aftermath. It really feels like a team effort and honestly, that's what has made it so enjoyable to write IUW and what has helped me grow in the process.
Chapter 22: A Sense of Misgiving
Callie squeezed her eyes closed, determined to claw back sleep. She faintly remembered Lena telling her that her night would get screwed up by going to bed too early. Still, she hadn't expected to be up at three thirty in the morning. It was still dark outside and the house was completely silent.
She really didn't want to wake up. Doing so would mean having to contend with the thoughts and feelings she wasn't ready to deal with yet.
Her body, however, had its own plans. Her pounding head signalled a sugar crash and her stomach felt as though it was folding in on itself. Worst of all, her sense of urgency was increasingly exponentially by the minute. Hoping to fight her bladder on this, Callie kept her legs crossed. Stef was an extremely light sleeper and she didn't want to wake her up this early on the weekend, something she knew would annoy the cop.
Quickly learning that her goal of not leaving the room was unrealistic, Callie crept to the bathroom. On the way back, she found a cereal bar that she had stashed in a bag under her bed. She laid back down and deliberated whether she should eat it. Neither women liked food outside of the kitchen or TV room, except when someone was sick, but she was starving. After listening to make sure they hadn't woken up, she decided to go for it, unwrapping it carefully so crumbs wouldn't get everywhere.
Slowly but surely, the familiar ache of disappointment and grief began to overwhelm her.
In the last few months, Callie had fought against her instincts, desperate to bury some of the doubts she had about the women. A part of her wanted to trust them whenever they insisted that their home was a safe place where she and Jude would always have their unconditional love and acceptance. That they'd go ahead with the adoption no matter what.
She had been surprised to learn that these things were important enough to her that she started to believe them, even though she wondered if things were going too well to be anything but bogus.
Her disappointment was magnified even more now that she had gotten attached to these ideas and to the women—especially Stef. She should've known better than to let herself do that.
Callie knew that she'd been pushing the women, raring to see if they were who they said they were. To test the integrity of their promises. But now that she'd discovered the truth, she was left reeling from the betrayal.
She had gone too far this time. Stef had said in so many words that she couldn't live with them if she couldn't follow their rules. "You're done acting this way…you're done," she recalled her saying while they stood outside. Presumably, that meant that their relationship with finished. She was truly done screwing up because they had had enough and wouldn't hesitate to get rid of her.
But what Lena had said contradicted those very messages. In fact, she had told her not to worry about being kicked out because she was part of their family. Perhaps she had convinced Stef to change her mind while they were talking outside—to give her a few more chances to prove her worth. Maybe that was why Lena seemed so confident that she wouldn't be going anywhere. Her heart dropped as she was struck by the thought that she had managed to blow through one of those chances already.
Blinking away tears, she blew out a shaky breath. It was too hard to second-guess what Stef and Lena meant and she wished they would tell her exactly what to expect. Then again, if there was anything this experience had taught her, it was that nothing apart from instability was a guarantee.
It hadn't been the first time Callie had encountered foster parents who spanked. Most of the time, it would be for things she and Jude hadn't anticipated being a big deal. Accidents—spilling, breaking things, or ruining clothes. Forgetting to wipe the moisture on the bathroom mirror or missing a wet spot by the tub after a bath. Taking too long and wasting hot water. Being mouthy. Disagreements with the real kids. Taking anything from the kitchen outside of mealtimes. Doing anything that would raise Bill's suspicions during a visit. Admittedly, Jude's problems were more serious. For the longest time, he wet the bed on a nightly basis and couldn't wipe himself properly, which would leave a mess of his underwear and generally make laundry gross. He would routinely raid his classmates' cubbies whenever he went to the bathroom, resulting in calls to the parents and to Bill. All of these were punishable offences.
She remembered thinking of her foster parents as angry Jack in the Boxes, their anger spring loaded and pent up over the course of the day. Waiting for a hair trigger that would give them an excuse to take it out on any of the foster kids. Once they were set off, there was no going back. Countless times she had found herself face down and exposed before she could even identify the transgression that needed to be committed to memory.
What had happened with Stef hadn't been so bad.
The whole ordeal with Stef had lasted all but a few seconds and had been nothing like what she'd gotten before. There had been no objects…no blows that landed unpredictably. Even though Stef had been livid and yelled at her right before, she hadn't continued to scream at her while hitting her. Afterward, they had tried to make her feel better. This was an entirely new concept because her experiences before had parents who gave the silent treatment until they felt better. Once they did, the expectation was that everything returned to normal. They didn't want any crying. As if nothing had ever happened, even if your skin still felt like a burn.
The woman had only hit her a few times but it had still hurt. She remembered hearing the first slap before she had felt it—before the sound of the faraway whimper she later recognized as her own. How subsequent contact with Stef's hand had amplified into an unrelenting sting that had her crying out and desperate to escape. She felt completely embarrassed thinking about it now.
It hadn't been so bad, though. She had been struck hard enough that it stung but the discomfort had faded by the time Lena had found her.
What surprised Callie was how it'd hurt so much more this time. Why it still hurt now, as though the chaos of it all had moved inside of her.
She felt entirely out of control, all at once nervous and bitter. Almost as if consumed by a grief she never knew resided in her.
"Callie," the cop called in a singsong tone as she walked across the girls' bedroom. She opened the curtains partway to let some light in—enough to brighten things up but not so much that it'd be jarring. Now well past ten in the morning, she was anxious to have the girl get up to eat something.
She began to pick stuff up from Mariana's side of the room, not bothering to be quiet about it. "Wake up, Cal. It's late," she said as the girl stirred and rolled before letting out a quiet snore. Stef groaned, wishing she had just come in when she heard Callie flush the toilet at around four.
Finally, she sat down on her daughter's bed, sipping her coffee while letting her thoughts wander.
God, she hated that their kid was doing pot. Marijuana today was nothing like the stuff she had experimented with growing up; growers had become better skilled at cultivating strains that would offer the fastest, strongest high. Whatever had been in that joint smelled extremely potent and she worried about Callie's vulnerability to adverse effects for picking it up at such a young age. In the bedroom, Callie had coordinated the joint and lighter with experience—not really looking like a teen who was trying to be cool—and she wondered if the girl had been truthful about only starting to smoke. Then again, Stef knew that the behaviour could've been picked up anywhere. She blamed the older foster sibling behind the dial-a-dope operation that had landed Callie in custody to put her mind at ease slightly.
As the cop had pointed out to Lena in the heat of their argument yesterday evening, she still saw Callie as a child who was highly impressionable. She was twelve when she had entered their home, only celebrating her thirteenth birthday a couple months into the placement.
Asleep, the girl looked even younger. Callie still had ample baby fat on her cheeks that caused her mouth to hang slightly open when her face rested against the pillow. The matted hair and dirty, chewed up fingernails were reminders that she could barely manage her self care. Her training camisole was visible from under her pyjama top, a reminder of their last visit to the children's family doctor, who had raised concerns over previous malnourishment delaying puberty. She and Lena had left the appointment armed with instructions to monitor and encourage weight gain by introducing healthy sources of fat and protein.
Like Dr. Wiseman had explained, it was true that Callie was leagues ahead in certain areas of development because she had been catapulted into situations most adults wouldn't have a concept of. In other areas, however, she was immature and behind when compared to Mariana. Their youngest daughter was already obsessed with shaving, tinted lip balm, teen magazines, and her latest endeavour—developing boobs.
"Mama! Mom! I think they're growing!" their tween yelled as she ran across the backyard. Holding her shirt open for them, she beamed as she stuck out her chest. "I'm ready for a bra!"
"Mariana!" both women cried at the same time, trying hard to hide their amusement. Though they were happy that their daughter was so confident with her body, they were slightly horrified at what seemed to be her only goal as of late.
"Come on sweetness. Time to wake up," Stef murmured, gently brushing the hair back from Callie's face until she finally roused and rolled to face her.
"Hi," Callie said hoarsely. She smiled at the cop through bleary eyes before memories of the previous day came flooding back. Quickly, her expression turned and she stared at Stef fearfully as though she'd just awoken from a nightmare.
"Hey Sleepy-bones," the cop said sympathetically as Callie gripped her blanket more tightly. "It's getting pretty late in the morning. I don't want you to oversleep any more than you already have," she explained.
"Sorry…I can—I mean—I'll get up now," the girl responded in a shaky voice. Her face reddened as she tried to extricate herself from the sheets without much success.
Stef felt her heart constrict in her chest at her daughter's reaction as she went to help her. Focused on the tangled heap, Callie failed to notice her hand closing the distance between them until Stef had gotten too close. Her daughter winced, reinforcing what she already knew—that the girl was afraid of her. However, she continued doing what she was doing, determined to mask her own dismay as much as she could to show Callie that she wasn't a threat.
"How are you doing?" she asked gently as Callie sat up. She shifted back on the bed and recrossed one leg under her, hoping that a little more space would help her daughter feel more at ease.
Callie's response barely came out above a whisper. "Good." She nodded as confidently as she could, trying to convince herself of the lie she was uttering. The one she was certain Stef could see right through.
The cop suppressed a sigh, immediately regretting the way she had asked and berating herself for not knowing what the answer would be. Even though Callie was looking down, in the daylight it wasn't hard to see just how puffy and watery her eyes were. The swelling extended all the way down her cheekbones and past her temples, signs that she'd been crying for quite a long time. And recently, too, judging by the large, wet patch on the pillowcase.
She knew that her daughter was anything but okay.
Callie sat there, feeling foolish and unsure of herself. She couldn't understand why things suddenly seemed so awkward between them.
"What's that you've got there, Cal?" she heard her foster mother ask. Her stomach flipped as she followed the woman's line of sight and saw what it was that Stef was referring to. The plastic foil wrapper from the cereal bar was sitting in plain sight on her bed. "Just garbage…" she said quietly, regretting that she hadn't tucked it under her pillow instead of the blankets. Because of that, she had managed to break a rule again only a few hours since she had promised herself she would do better.
It was hard to see Callie as a bundle of nerves. Glancing at the woman with a worried look, she immediately picked up the wrapper and crumpled it into her fist. Stef smiled warmly as she held out her palm, patiently waiting for Callie to make the next move. She did not miss the shakiness in the girl's hand when she finally placed it into her outstretched hand.
"This is full of sugar, honey…" Stef pointed out, smoothing out the creases so she could scrutinize the nutritional information. Unable to recognize it, she frowned, sure that Lena would've never allowed anything this processed into the house.
"And almost two years past its expiry date," she commented, unaware of how much it sounded like she was criticizing. It wasn't until she noticed Callie hanging her head that she realized these were non-issues. Her daughter was hungry and hadn't been comfortable helping herself to the food in the house.
"I know that you must be hungry. You're running on a single meal from yesterday," the cop suggested as Callie looked at her reluctantly. "Mama and I would've been more than happy to make you something, no matter what the time—you know that right?"
"I know that it's important to you to be considerate and that's why you don't like to wake us up," she ventured, choosing her words carefully. "But it's our job to help you, Cal."
"You know that you can go downstairs at any time to get something to eat our of the pantry as well," Stef continued. "At the very back of the third shelf are those crackers with fake cheese and the red plastic spreader stick." She winked, hoping to crack a smile from Callie. However, her daughter simply appeared bewildered as she glanced at the doorway for the third time.
"Mama's just downstairs working on brunch," she explained, suspecting the girl was hoping Lena would walk down the hall. "It seems that everyone else also decided to sleep in this morning at Grandma's so we're having a bit of a late start. They'll be back soon," she said, seeing how bereft the girl was. Neither she nor Lena had told Callie about their decision to send everyone off to her mother's and she was regretting not making the time for it. Only now did she appreciate how that might have been interpreted.
"We weren't excluding you, Bug," she said. "When we couldn't find you, we needed all hands on deck. We weren't sure when you'd be back and in the meantime, Grandma offered to pick everyone else from school and take care of our dinner so we could look for you. It got late and they stayed the night. I promise, there will be many more opportunities for sleepovers with the other kids," she continued. "I'm so sorry we didn't explain that to you," Stef apologized. "It must've been hard to not know where Jude or everyone else was."
"It's okay," Callie lied. She had only realized that the other kids weren't home when had first woke up and found Mariana's bed empty. "Sorry I worried you," she added quietly, fidgeting with her hands. She had missed Jude, of course, but understood that it was probably for the best that he hadn't been around when everything went down yesterday. Unlike her, her little brother was doing so much better at blending in with this family and she didn't want to be the one holding him back.
Still, part of her disappointment was the fact that she had missed out. She liked Sharon, a lot. The woman was the oldest person she knew and was so unlike what Callie had ever expected of someone her age: warm, eclectic, and vivacious.
"It's alright, honey. Thank you for your apology," Stef said sincerely. "We'll have lots of time to talk things over later. But first let's get something in your stomach, okay?" The girl's stomach had just let out another extended squeal, causing her to try to hide the noise by shifting the blankets.
She smiled encouragingly as Callie's eyes flitted nervously up at her. "What will it be? Toast or fruit?" she proposed, hoping that being forced to choose would give her daughter a voice.
Callie frowned as she chewed her bottom lip. "Either's good," she finally answered with uncertainty, confused as to why the woman cared that she was hungry.
"Alright. Toast or fruit can be arranged." Stef winked at her daughter, hiding her concern at the sudden timidness. Just as when Callie had first moved in, she was too shy to ask for what she wanted.
"Come on. Up and at 'em."
The two of them sat across from each other at the table. Now that Callie had polished off some cheese toast, Stef was armed with an apple and a paring knife. In front of the girl sat a dollop of peanut butter in a bowl. Every so often, Stef would carve a slice of fruit off and pass it to the girl who would dip it into the spread. It was a drawn out process but one that would allow them to talk while giving Callie something neutral to focus on.
Stef was happy to see the girl eating, although she was holding back on the peanut butter. Every few wedges, Callie would glance at the partially cut apple and then the bowl, trying to suss out how much she could double dip without running out. Determined to nudge her away from the insecurity, the cop placed another spoonful into the bowl. It was only then that Callie appeared to feel a little more generous with the amount she'd scoop with each slice.
"Two junior cheeses and McNuggets, hey?" Stef began.
Callie froze. She swallowed her apprehension before letting her gaze flicker up to meet her foster mother. Although Stef's eyebrows were furrowed, she also noticed her smile, giving the impression of exaggerated annoyance rather than one of irritation.
"Lucky girl." Stef softened her gaze, understanding her daughter's cautiousness. "Hey, you know how Mama feels about fast food. I know to take full advantage on the odd occasion I get to go to McDonalds, too," she continued, hoping that some lighthearted teasing would put Callie at ease. The girl looked especially on edge.
"What was that?" Lena called, causing their daughter's attention to dart over to her. She had just finished rolling the quiche shell into the Pyrex and was now poking holes into it.
The cop winked. "Exactly my point." Callie's wariness was not missed on her and she was torn between giving her the space she obviously wanted and pushing through. She and Lena hadn't talked to Callie about her behaviour yet, but they both felt that she needed to try to make things right with their daughter before they would even go there. They couldn't leave this unresolved.
"I was worried when we missed you at dinner last night, honey," she said. "I heard that you'd been pretty tired and that you went to bed early."
The woman ducked her head and looked at Callie knowingly. "I'm guessing that you probably felt a little foggy, too. Like maybe it was hard to think or move?" she questioned, smiling softly.
Unsure of where her foster mother was heading with this conversation, Callie nodded.
"Do you still feel this way or is it gone now?"
"Gone." The girl's tone was hushed. Uncomfortable.
Now it was Stef's turn to nod. "Good." She paused, uncertain of how to steer the discussion. "Are—are you hurt?" she asked gently. The subdued child they had spent so much time and effort pulling her out of her shell had returned overnight.
Callie looked at her nervously and swallowed. Unsure of how to answer, she shoved another bite in so all she'd have to do was to shake her head.
That Callie wasn't giving her much in the way of responses didn't phase her in the least. Having contended with an extremely shy Mariana who barely spoke a word, Stef had been forced to be comfortable carrying on one-sided conversations. The preschooler had turned out to be quite the little chatterbox so opportunities for practice had been cut short. However, that skill of hearing yourself talk out loud while letting go of the expectation of an answer—without feeling foolish—had never left her.
"Yesterday was a huge mess, wasn't it?" Stef drew in a shaky breath before letting it out.
"I— I owe you an apology, love. I let my frustration get the best of me and punished you when I was angry…instead of walking away to calm down first," she said sincerely. "No matter how upset I was, that was wrong. I want you to understand that."
Callie stared at the apple slice she had in her hands dejectedly. It was half gone but she couldn't bring herself to take that last few bites; once she did, she'd have to accept the next piece which would mean making some eye contact. However brief it'd be, she couldn't do it. She hated what had happened yesterday and she hated that they were talking about it when all she wanted was to delete the entire day from her memory.
"Mama and I promised you that we do not hit in this house and I'm so sorry I went back on that, Callie. I cannot imagine how you must feel right now." The cop cleared her throat, unsure of why her confidence was shot.
"This was something we should have discussed first—calmly, and the three of us together. I made a huge mistake letting that slip my radar. You deserved fair warning about what was going to happen, much more than what I gave you. I knew I was going to change things up but that was completely unfair to you, to expect you to suddenly understand and accept that, too."
Lena stood at the counter, listening intently. During yesterday's fight, they had disagreed on what the apology to their daughter should look like. While she had wanted Stef to apologize for everything, including the actual punishment, her wife strongly believed that it had only been wrong for the circumstances it had occurred under and that the spanking itself had been warranted.
In the end, she had conceded that she needed to give Stef space and the support to do what she felt was right. It'd been tough to admit that she had been more than happy to let Stef take the lead on discipline when it came to Callie while she took on Jude.
The division had happened almost naturally. The boy, being the shyer of the two, feared Stef and gravitated towards Lena. Perpetually anxious to make mistakes, he responded better to Lena's gentle redirection. Callie had also been compliant, wanting to please both of the women at the beginning. However, as she began to challenge the limits they set for her, it was clear that Lena's approach wasn't as effective with her. Though the girl put pressure on Stef relentlessly, at the end of the day she still feared the cop, giving them an advantage when Callie was being especially difficult.
Lena knew that for consistency's sake, her wife needed to be the one to talk to Callie about the consequence as she saw fit. Right now, consistency and a united front were the most important things, even if she disagreed with Stef on the specifics.
"I see so much of my job as a parent to be the one to keep you kids safe…but it doesn't feel like I've been doing a good job at it," she admitted.
Callie met her gaze, unable to hide her surprise. No adult had ever apologized to her before or admitted their insecurities and she wasn't sure how she felt about it.
"When I found out you had gone into the safe… I just got so scared thinking about how you could have gotten hurt. All that was running through my head was to snap you out of it so you would stop and listen to me. To teach you a lesson so you wouldn't ever consider putting yourself in danger like that again," Stef said. Her tone was gentle but held a hint of sternness.
"At that point, that outweighed everything else, even if it meant breaking a promise. It was shortsighted and the truth is that I wasn't thinking about your feelings," the woman confessed. Her voice broke as she recalled the image of Callie pulling away from her and crying inconsolably, now an indelible memory in her mind. "I'm sorry that I didn't consider how hurtful my actions would be. I didn't mean to scare you, baby. That was not my intention at all."
"Does that make sense?" she prompted, taking in the girl's downcast eyes and fidgeting. "I love you so much, sweetheart. I don't know what we would do without you."
Throughout their conversation, she had been watching the teen carefully, looking for any sign of her feelings. However, Callie appeared to be lost. She was slowly returning to her old tendencies of closing herself off so she wouldn't get hurt again.
"Yeah. I get it," Callie whispered unconvincingly. "I'm sorry I made you mad," she ventured, getting the sense that the cop wanted to hear something more from her but also not wanting to say the wrong thing that would make her upset.
Stef's heart sank. She still wasn't sure if Callie truly grasped the magnitude of her actions but she also wasn't going to address any of that now. This was about showing their daughter that she was worthy of respect and trying to take the first steps towards rebuilding trust. The long talk about actual behaviour and consequences would come later.
"Oh, honey…" she exhaled. She couldn't help but to become emotional when she saw the frightened, bewildered expression on the girl's face. "You don't have to apologize for my emotions," she said gently, glancing at Lena in case she floundered. "Do you remember what I said to you the other day?"
The youth frowned. Stef said a lot of things and it wasn't easy to remember it all.
The woman suppressed a laugh. Of course, Callie wouldn't remember. She felt like she had lectured for three days straight while wondering how much of it had left an impression.
"We are all entitled to have our feelings—that's okay and perfectly normal. But how we feel is no excuse for disrespect. I was upset with you, I was angry—that you are right about, Callie. But that did not make it okay that I didn't treat you with full respect. It was not okay that we didn't talk about what I felt needed to happen. I needed to make sure you understood exactly why I was going to spank you and I didn't do that. You deserved better."
"I—I gave you a hard time over losing my trust but I know that I lost your's too, kiddo. Think we can be patient with each other as we start to earn that trust back?"
"Okay," Callie replied despondently, feeling her cheeks flush. She looked nervously at Lena as the woman came to sit with them.
Lena hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "Honey… I'm sure you've already figured out that there are some long chats in our future," she said softly as she gave Callie an apologetic smile. Their daughter looked so contrite that for a moment she wanted to believe that she was really sorry. Somehow, her gut told her differently.
"But your feelings are important, too. I don't want you thinking for a second, Callie, that just because you are in trouble with us that we do not want to hear from you. If you're scared or ashamed or angry with us for what happened at any time yesterday or the days before, we want to hear about it, okay? Please don't bottle them up. We would never be upset with you over how you feel."
Callie tried to hide her doubt over what she was hearing. She wanted so much to believe Stef and Lena but she couldn't. For awhile, she'd gotten a little too comfortable and let her guard down, getting burned as a result.
"Please don't hide from us, ladybug…" Lena continued when the girl didn't respond, desperate to engage her in any possible. "We can't help if we don't know what's going on."
"Mama's right, you know. As much as we like hearing ourselves talk, there's only so much we can do," the cop said, keeping her tone playful. "Plus, I suspect you had quite the adventure yesterday and I bet we don't know half of it!" She raised her eyebrows in mock sternness as she smiled at Callie.
Her comment managed to draw a shy smile from Callie before her expression became somber once again. It would take more than one conversation or a day to get through to her, but Stef hoped that this was a good start. She needed to believe in that—even though she worried about if and when Callie would let her back in. Especially when she was still wrestling with her own doubts over if she'd done what was best for Callie.
She just hoped that her hunch was right—that regardless of the way things were now, that it'd be worth it in the long run.