Her slender fingers felt stiff from holding the piece of paper in her hands for so long, her eyes dry from not blinking for what seemed like hours. Her left hand was resting on her mouth, which formed a silent "oh", she was still in her uniform, sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, her mind miles away.
This is how her wife found her, and the concern that covered her face was immediate. Lena reached out her right hand, to pull the piece of paper from her wife, but Stef was in another world entirely, her fingers clamping around the white lined sheet. The resistance from one woman, and the tugging from the other caused a loud rip to be heard across the house. This noise is what sprung Stef into action, tearing the letter into tiny shreds, tossing them each on the floor. She didn't know when she had started to cry she just knew that her face had become wet and her eyesight blurry from the damn tears.
Lena pulled her wife into a hug, holding her graying blonde hair back from her face, as sobs wracked the woman's body. Comforting "shh's" and "it's going to be okay," could be heard if you stood close enough and listened. Lena, the taller woman of the two, was still in the dark about what the piece of paper her wife was holding happened to say, but you could go so far as to hazard a guess that it was heartbreaking. Her mind immediately going to the children, thinking one of them had died. But surely, that wasn't the case, because a phone call would have been more sufficient and equally as heartbreaking.
And so her mind settled on their oldest son and former foster daughter, who four years prior had left in the middle of the night, with her assistance, for the east coast. She knew that Stef and their son had traded harsh words for the better part of four years in the multicolored pages of whatever paper was closest to them when the need arose. Only because of Stef's resistance to believe the two teenagers were actually in love. This act had caused a chasm to open in their family, one Lena was sure would never fully close. There was another gaping hole in Lena's heart, the one cause by her wife's inability to be happy for their oldest son...to just let him and Callie come home with their support and love. Try as Lena might, she just couldn't get her wife to see past the blinding wall of rage, that Brandon and Callie's selfish act at the mere age of 16 had brought upon this family. Looking back on it now, a few kisses, and shouted I love her's from him to them was something so small and insignificant now...
Now that they had not laid eyes on either one of them, in four years.
The slamming of a car door pulls Stef out of her other world, and the blonde woman goes rigid in her wife's hold. Lena looks down and notices the fear running through Stef's eyes, making a mental note to ask her about it later on in the evening. For now, she is sure that their youngest son Jude is about to make his 16 year old self very well known in the household. And much like every other afternoon, he comes barreling through the door, tossing his backpack in the corner and heads straight to the fridge. Lena smiles as he rounds the corner with an apple, already with a bite missing, and he says "hey moms," while chewing and races up the stairs.
Stef had since relaxed enough in her wife's arms for Lena to begin to wrap her mind around the situation. She reaches out with her dark skinned thumb, and brushes away the tears that had collected in the black hollow under her wife's eyes, something that had been there for the better part of four years. They were familiar with sleep deprevation, Stef staring at the cordless phone for hours before passing out into a fitful dream state. Where her son was still home, and Callie was still the foster daughter she never got the chance to adopt.
Lena places a kiss to Stef's forehead, letting her lips linger against her wife's flesh for moments longer than necessary for a chaste kiss. Stef's sigh tells the other woman that this contact, this show of love, is much appreciated. And so Lena does not move her lips from their position until Stef signals that she is ready for the contact to be lost. Stef opens her mouth, once, twice, thrice, and finally on the fourth time she speaks in a whisper echoing a million bad decisions and wrong doings.
"They're coming home." And suddenly Lena understands, the gravity of the situation clicks together in her mind, and then it starts racing. The scenarios, the what ifs, the eventual possibility that her wife may be shocked into a heart attack when she learns that Lena has known all along of Avery. Had even seen him during hasty Skype calls in the dead of the night while Stef slept fitfully in their bed.
And so Lena does the only thing she can think of, she holdes her wife tighter, kissing her again on the forehead, reaffirming everything the first kiss tried to convey. Her eyes traveling to the mantle, to pictures of Brandon and Callie, smiling down at them...
It was three days later when the doorbell rang. Lena was standing in the kitchen chopping vegetables, the knife paused mid slice, wondering if her wife was home to get the door. After a few moments of silence, she placed the knife down on the cutting block, and grabbed the nearest red checkered hand towel. She took tenative steps to the front door, wiping her hands as she went, heart racing, thumping hard and wildly against her chest wall. Her breath was coming in short pants now, her mind knowing already who was at the door, and so she opened it without bothering to ask who was there.
Lena stepped back, admiring the sight of her oldest son and his wife, the daughter they had wanted to make officially theirs, but never could. And before she could process what she was doing she dropped to her knees, the towel falling to the floor, to stare at the mini version of the two adults standing in her doorstep. She clutched her hand to her mouth, trying desperately to contain the sob that was threatening to rip from her throat at the moment. The little boy was clutching to his father's hand with such intensity, staring back at her with the most beautiful hazel eyes she had ever seen, the sheer size and depth of them, causing her to believe she was looking into both Brandon's and Callie's eyes at the same time, and in a fashion she was.
"Hi Mama." Callie said, her words coming out in a breathy whisper, that sounded nothing like the ex girl who once lived here. She ran her hands nervously through her long curled hair, twirling the end of one strand around her index finger. Her nails were painted a bright red, and the sun was glinting off of the diamond ring she sported on her left ring finger. Lena's hand reached out for her, enveloping her in the hug of a century, pulling her body so close to that of the younger woman. She opened her other arm, inviting her son into the embrace, and he complied without any coaxing.
"Oh, my babies." The words came out in a rushed whisper, her lips automatically kissing their cheeks, her hands itching to get a hold of her grandson. Callie stepped back, bending to pick up her son, making sure he was eye level with Lena. She spoke to him softly, kissing his forehead.
"Avery, honey, this is your grandmother." She explained to the boy, who had only seen her once or twice through a computer screen. The small boy looked from his mother to the woman smiling down at him gently. Her reached out one small hand and touched her cheek, giggling loudly.
"Gamma!" He yelled loudly, squirming, desperately trying to free himself from his mothers grasp. Callie smiled sheepishly at Lena, passing the boy over in the same motion.
"I'm so glad you two came home." Lena said, her eyes never leaving her grandson.
She turned her back on the couple who was now clutching onto each other, Callie with eyes laced in fear at what lay beyond the threshold. Brandon with his back rigid, and nothing but pride and strength on his face. His mother looked between the two of them, realizing that she had missed it, not only missed them.
She had missed them growing up. She had missed watching her son turn from a boy who ran, to a man who was ready to fight. The realization caused a sadness to creep up on her, slowly trailing it's way up her spine, and so she smiled at the two of them fondly, and welcomed them inside.