Maureen almost didn't recognize the person staring back at her in the mirror. She looked haggard, dark circles permanently etched beneath her eyes gave her almost a ghoulish appearance. She splashed some water on her face and patted it dry with the nearby hand towel. She gave herself a mental pep talk. She could survive the day. She'd survived much worse.
The house was silent as she wandered through, picking up stray nerf darts, and Pokémon cards. Carl had gotten the boys to school, before heading back for his first full day of work since Brynn was born. The obvious chaos of the morning was memorialized in the pile of dishes and the scattered cheerios on the floor.
With a sigh she pulled open the dishwasher and began to unload the dishes from the night before. The chore moved fast enough, but then she picked up a small plastic bowl with Elmo smiling on the bottom. Her lip quivered and she gently held the relic from her childhood. The once white plastic had yellowed with age, and much of the cartooned details faded.
She coughed back a cry as she remembered the day her mother brought the bowl over with a box of other baby things. The twins were only days old when her mom showed up with that box of vintage treasures, and a huge hug. Her mom stayed for ten days after the twins were born. She picked up the slack on the housework, and stayed up at night holding one baby while Maureen fed the other. Her heart wrenched. Her mother was gone, and she was on her own.
She carefully set the plastic dish in an upper cabinet, but before she could reach for another, Brynn's wail echoed through the monitor. Maureen held back tears as she duragged herself towards her bedroom where the baby slept. She glanced at the clock on her dresser and sighed. She had only slept twenty minutes.
Maureen went through the motions, lifting Brynn from the bassinet, bouncing her softly. Her wails receded into light sniffles, but her large blue eyes were wide awake. With a sigh Maureen carried her daughter to the family room, hoping she could find a space for them to snuggle and watch TV.
A soft knock at the door caught her attention. She nervously glanced towards the door. She wasn't expecting anyone. At least not that she remembered. The person on the other side, knocked softly again so Maureen tucked Brynn into the bouncer situated in the middle of the floor.
Brynn's lower lip stuck out, and Maureen braced herself for the oncoming scream, but to her surprise she settled in without a peep.
Maureen reached for the door knob and tried to ignore the spit up stain on her shirt and the flyaways brushing against her face. She didn't expect to see the warm sympathetic smile greeting her on the other side of the door.
"Olivia!" She said in surprise.
"Hey," Olivia gave her a soft smile. She lifted a couple bags. "I brought lunch if you're hungry."
"Um, yeah, come on in." Maureen stepped back and let Olivia pass through the door. When she paused Maureen realized she didn't know where the kitchen was to set the food down. "Kitchen is to the left." Maureen kicked an abandoned toy out of the walk way. "Sorry about the mess. We are kind of in survival mode right now." She wanted the comment to sound light, but she couldn't keep the shame out of her voice. Keeping a clean house was just one more thing she was failing at.
"Please don't worry about that," Olivia said kindly. "Let me set this down in the kitchen, and then I want to meet this little lady who everyone seems to be talking about."
"Okay," Maureen agreed.
While Olivia retreated to the kitchen, Maureen returned to the bouncer where Brynn still laid, eyes wide open, but perfectly content. Maureen unbuckled the newborn and lifted her into her arms. "What do you think, little lady? We have a visitor. How about that," she cooed quietly.
Maureen heard the sink running in the kitchen, and suddenly felt mortified. She never finished the dishes, and she was certain Olivia had encountered a full sink.
With Brynn pressed to her chest she hurried into the kitchen to find Olivia rinsing dishes and dropping them into the dishwasher.
"Please," Maureen felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment. "You don't have to do that. Really."
Without a word Olivia placed a final dish in before starting the dishwasher. She reached for a clean hand towel to dry her hands and replied, "I don't mind."
When Maureen was younger she had been fascinated by Olivia. She represented everything Maureen thought she wanted. Freedom. Independence. Strength. She always seemed so different from the women she knew, her mother in particular. The contrast felt more stark when Olivia's warm brown eyes focused on her. Every person she loved, every person she was close to, had bright blue eyes. When Olivia came into their lives, everything about her felt foreign, all the way down to her chocolate brown eyes.
Being the oldest gave Maureen a unique perspective on her parent's marriage. She clearly remembers the time before Olivia, during Olivia, and after Olivia. Most of her siblings were too young to really remember the before. For them, Olivia's presence in their life was the most natural thing in the world, but it didn't feel that way for Maureen.
The arguments over Olivia began when Maureen was eleven or twelve. In the beginning they cropped up infrequently, usually in arguments over the job. As she got older the fights became less about the job and more about Olivia.
As a teen, Maureen always felt so torn. Olivia protected her dad while they were working. She was his partner. She had his back. She kept him alive. Most of all, she always alleviated Maureen's worry about her dads safety. A body burning on the beach had brought the terror and danger of her fathers job to the forefront, and from then on she loved Olivia for how she protected her father.
She loved Olivia, but she hated her too. It was hard not to when she made her mother so unhappy. She was seventeen when her mother's words became more harsh, more judgemental, in her assessment of Olivia. Accusations were often thrown around about her dad's work wife. Maureen remembered all the tears and fear that plagued her mother during that time. It was like every move Olivia made sent her into a tornado of insecurity. Then her parents separated.
Mom seemed happier, but Dad was a hot mess. Around that time Olivia bailed on him too. She began an extended UC job, and Dad was lost. For the first time in almost a decade Maureen was terrified for her dads safety while working. In her heart she knew no one protected her father like Olivia did. No one could keep him safe like she could.
The whole thing had been incredibly messy, and then her mom got pregnant with Eli, and she watched her dad step up, like always, and take responsibility, always at the expense of his own happiness. It was hard to watch. She wanted her parents to be together, but not out of obligation and duty. It didn't feel right.
And then Olivia was hurt, and Maureen felt helpless and uncertain. What the hell was she supposed to do? Her parents were an ocean away. She had no idea, how her father left things, or what the hell happened to make him take off like that. For a long time she thought that maybe he and Olivia crossed some sort of line and her mother finally had enough of Olivia and her intrusion into their marriage.
She reasoned if her dad didn't come back for his best friend during her worst hell, then something had to have happened. Maybe he knew Olivia wouldn't want to see him, and if she didn't want to see her dad then she obviously wouldn't want to see his kids. So Maureen stayed away, and watched Olivia's career grow from a distance.
Her dad never asked about Olivia, never spoke her name, so Maureen figured there had been a horrible falling out, and it was better to just stay away.
Then her parents showed up for an award ceremony, and her world was turned on its head with one phone call. One explosion. One death.
Olivia's words drew her from her thoughts. "When's the last time you really slept?"
Maureen rubbed her palm over her forehead. "Uh, I don't know. Probably not since Dad took the boys a couple of weeks ago."
Olivia's eyes bled sympathy. "I'm putting this food in the fridge. You take a nap, and we can heat it up after."
Maureen hesitated, "I dunno." She bounced Brynn lightly. "She's really colicky, and I don't want you to babysit a screaming baby." Her eyes dropped to the floor.
Olivia stepped closer and held her elbow gently. "If you're uncomfortable with that, it's okay, but I've held a screaming baby before." She nodded as she reassured her, "Noah had lots of ear infections when he was a baby. It made for a lot of sleepless nights with a screaming baby. Don't worry about her crying."
Maureen bit her lip. She wasn't at all worried about Olivia's capabilities with her baby, but she felt like a burden.
Olivia gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. "Let me help."
"Okay," Maureen agreed softly. "If she gets to be too much, wake me up. She settles with me most of the time." She transferred Brynn into Olivia's waiting arms, and ran her hand over the baby's downy blonde hair. "She might want a bottle. There's breast milk in the fridge." Maureen looked up shyly, "if you're comfortable with that."
Olivia smiled genuinely. "I am. We'll be fine out here. You sleep."
"Okay," Maureen hesitated before stepping towards the hallway. "Seriously Liv, wake me up if she becomes a little terror."
"We'll be just fine," Olivia cooed towards the baby. "Get some sleep."
-000-
Maureen woke to the low rumble of voices. She sat up suddenly, feeling disoriented. Her room had begun to darken, and she wondered just how long she had been sleeping.
She flipped her blanket off of her legs and padded quietly out of her room. She quickly recognized the low rumble of her father's voice.
"You gonna let me hold her?"
"Not a chance Grandpa. I don't get newborn snuggles very often."
"Oh come on, you hold Rollins' baby all the time."
"Yeah, but Nicky isn't this tiny and dripping with pink."
Maureen crept closer, not wanting to interrupt. She watched her dad get up from the couch and stand close to Olivia. He laid a hand on Brynn's back, and rubbed softly. "She is pretty perfect," he breathed.
"She looks just like Maureen," Olivia said as she dropped a soft kiss on her baby's head.
"I know, but did you see her eyes?"
"Yeah," Olivia said with affection. "Those are Stabler eyes."
She was right. Brynn's eyes looked exactly like hers and all of her brothers' and sisters'. Stabler eyes.
They were silent for a moment, and Maureen considered making her entrance, but then her father asked, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," she insisted, but she couldn't hide the sadness in her voice.
"I thought we decided to talk about shit instead of burying it." He spoke the words without malice.
She could almost hear Olivia gulp back her nervousness. "A couple things I guess," her voice remained sad but thoughtful.
Her dad stepped closer and murmured softly, "Talk to me."
Maureen wasn't sure she had ever heard her father use that sort of a voice with anyone. It was so…affectionate. Not in the way he talked to his kids or her mother. It was different. She wondered if it was the voice he saved for her. For Olivia.
Olivia sighed and rubbed a hand up and down Brynn's back. "I guess sometimes," she started, but stopped, shaking her head. She didn't want to say whatever she was thinking, but her father pressed.
"Liv," he pleaded simply.
"We will never have this," she admitted so quietly that Maureen barely made out the words.
"I know," her dad said at the same volume.
"And then I feel guilty…"
"Why?" Her dad sounded genuinely confused.
"Look at this baby El. She looks exactly like her mom who looks exactly like her mom. I just," she sighed, "I can't help feeling like the only reason I'm here, the only reason I get to snuggle this baby is because she's gone."
Her dad stood silently for a moment, but then Olivia continued.
"I get to watch all the important events in her children's lives. I get to hold her grandbabies, I'll attend weddings. I'm going to do all the things she can't." Her voice thickened with emotion. "My…my happiness came at her expense."
"You didn't wish for this Olivia."
"No, but…"
"But what?"
"Nothing. Nothing," she shook her head.
Her father sighed. "Give me that baby," he said as he reached for the sleeping baby. Olivia transferred her into his arms. Brynn looked incredibly tiny snuggled up against her grandpa. He bounced and swayed for a moment before carefully setting Brynn in the bassinet closeby. He tucked a lightweight blanket around her legs to make her feel more secure.
When he felt certain she would stay asleep he turned towards Olivia. He reached for her elbow and pulled her into his chest. Maureen watched as Olivia almost immediately melted into him, pressing her cheek against his chest.
The scene felt so foreign that Maureen felt uncomfortable watching. The simple embrace felt intimate somehow. Maybe it was because she had never seen her dad hold Olivia like that. Maybe it was because she'd never seen Olivia with a man…ever, or maybe it was the all encompassing emotional intensity of the moment that left her reeling.
As if he knew her every thought, he murmured reassurances into her hair. "You have no control over how your mother lived her life. None. What happened to her…I can't imagine, but you know none of it was your fault."
"I get that. I do. On a cognitive level I can understand it, but occasionally," she chuckled ruefully, "I've had fifty five years to figure out all that garbage, but even though I know I wasn't the reason my mom was…what she was, and even though I know that my happiness didn't come at your wife's expense…I just can't shake the feeling."
Maureen thought she should back away. The conversation was clearly headed in a very personal direction, and she should give them privacy. She should, but she couldn't. The answers to so many mysteries were playing out right in front of her. She couldn't back away now.
Her dad tightened his arms around her. "The world is better with you in it. You think you shouldn't have happened, that from some dark twist of fate your birth ruined your mothers life. God Liv, what happened to your mother was…unfathomable."
Maureen's stomach twisted at her sudden realization. Olivia's mother was raped. And Olivia was the result. Her heart broke for the woman who had always been so warm and so kind to her, and to her family.
His hand brushed her cheek affectionately, "you don't think you deserve good things, but you do. And you know what?" He choked back his rising emotion. "I thank God everyday for your presence in my life. I've thanked God for that everyday for the past twenty five years."
For a moment she absorbed his words, and then Maureen heard a barely discernible whisper, "I love you."
Her dad kissed her forehead. "I know. And I don't know how things would be…i don't know, if Kathy," he cleared his throat. "All I know is we are here now. We did our best, all of us. We all hurt, but we are here now, and I refuse to let guilt or grief ruin what we are finally allowed to have." He cupped her cheek, his eyes glistening with emotion. "I was faithful to Kathy for our entire marriage. No matter…no matter how much I cared for you. You always kept me in line. You didn't want…you didn't wish this on her, but it happened, and Liv?" Her eyes lifted to his, full of hope. "I want to spend whatever time I have left with you."
Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, but as she opened her mouth to speak a cry sounded from the bassinet. Her dad chuckled, "Do you need some more baby snuggles."
Olivia tightened her arms around him. "I do, but I fed her a bottle earlier, and I think it's probably time for Maureen to feed her."
Maureen's eyes widened when she realized they would soon come looking for her. She moved quickly and quietly towards her room and flicked the comforter back over herself and feigned sleep.
She heard footsteps in the hallway, and she knew the knock would come any second. She tucked away the interaction she witnessed. She would revisit it later, probably in the middle of another sleepless night. She thought she would feel more torn, more sad, when her dad ultimately chose Olivia, but she didn't feel that way at all. The only word to describe the feeling in her heart was peace. Maybe things had been a complicated mess for most of her life, but for the first time she felt like everything was as it should be.
Comments are my fave! Thank you to all of those who leave them often! Love you!