I Will Run To You

I Stand Accused On Trial (Part 1)

Dallas, Texas
Monday, September 5, 1983
(7:00 am)
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"Stevie...baby...the phone. It's on your side."

Stevie was asleep, pleasantly dreaming of Robin. They were old women, well into their seventies, and Robin sat beside her in the living room, watching her granddaughter play with her new toys under the Christmas tree. Matthew had named his daughter Robin for his mother, always knowing he would do that after hearing how she'd sacrificed so much of her health to bring him into the world...and still survived.

"Come here, Grandma Stevie," said Little Robin, holding up two Barbie dolls dressed in velvet Christmas dresses. She shook one of them in the air. "You be this one and I'll be the one in the red."

Robin tossed back her auburn hair, which came out of a bottle now at seventy-five, laughing. "What about me, Robin? I don't get a Barbie?"

Little Robin rolled her eyes but she was smiling. "You play Barbies with me all the time, Grandma! I NEVER get to play with Grandma Stevie because she's always away at the concerts all the time."

Stevie handed Robin her glass of wine with a laugh and said, "Kid has a point." She loved the fact that from the moment that little girl had been born, Robin had told her they were both her grandmothers, that there was no pushing her aside and relegating her to aunt; she had been so much a part of the Anderson family when Matthew was born that she was his mother too. Even Kim, who'd just entered Stevie's living room from the kitchen with a slice sweet potato pie in one hand and his cane in the other after a mini stroke the previous year, had to agree.

"Give an old lady a hand, Robin," Stevie said to her granddaughter as she attempted with her bad knee to sit on the floor by the tree beside her. Little Robin held out her hand and Stevie came to rest on the floor with a groan that made the little girl giggle.

"How come you always make noises when you sit down, Grandma Stevie?" She was using a tiny pink comb on her Barbie's long ponytail.

"Because I'm going to be seventy-five this year, kid...that's like nine times your age and my knees hurt when I move."

"Is it from all the twirling at the shows?"

Stevie laughed, picking up the Barbie she'd been assigned and a tiny lavender hairbrush shaped like a seashell. "Maybe so...that's a lot of twirling I do up there...Hey Robin, can you keep a secret?" She watched the little girl nod excitedly. She leaned in closer and said, "Next year, everybody thinks I'm only going to do three shows, but I'm actually doing a whole big tour! I'm going to twirl my way through 2023, kid...and you can tell your dad to bring you to as many as you want."

"You're touring next year, Stevie?" Kim had heard the exchange, and his question was punctuated by a large bite of pie.

"Some with Billy Joel and some solo," Stevie explained. "Years ago I told a reporter I'd still be singing 'Rhiannon' from my rocking chair as long as my capes didn't get stuck...and Stevie Nicks Buckingham always keeps her word!"

"She's kept her word to ME for forty years."

Lindsey appeared in the doorway from the dining room, smiling. He looked down at his wife and asked, encoded for Little Robin's sake, "Hey, Mrs. Buckingham, want to join me out in the yard for a little herbal escape?" He tapped his breast pocket with a grin. Stevie giggled.

"In a little while, sweetheart. We're playing Barbies." She held up the doll for emphasis.

"I'll join you, Lindsey," said Robin Sr., rising from her seat. "It'll help my arthritis. It's so damp today and my wrists are killing me."