Penny nodded her head, tears streaming down her red cheeks as she reached out to take her moms hand in hers. "I am so sorry that you felt like my life was going to be better off without you in it." She didn't know how to sympathize with her, but she did feel awfully compelled to comfort her.
She knew it wasn't easy- it couldn't have been easy, not in the slightest, but she felt like she was doing the right thing at the time, so who was Penny to judge?
Sure, she'd suffered from the consequences of Stevie's actions, but that didn't mean she held any sort of real resentment towards her... She never had.
"But I missed you every day that you weren't there," she did, even if she didn't always remember... She definitely always felt the void though. "And I never, ever held anything against you for leaving us." Penny added, fingers still laced with her mothers as she let the tears fall freely.
"I'm sorry." Stevie whispered, tilting her head to the side as her eyes scanned over Penny's beautiful face, even though her vision was blurred and her heart was beating a mile a minute.
Penelope nodded lightly, already knowing that. "Weren't you ever curious about me?" She thought it was a weird question to ask, but she had to know... She wanted to know if she ever crossed her moms mind in her twenty year absence.
Stevie felt Penny give her hand a gentle squeeze before she slowly took it back to grab another tissue... It was hard to talk about, that's for sure.
"There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't wonder what you were doing, or where you were, or who you were with." She assured, knowing that sounded kind of cliché but also being totally honest. "The night that I left, I got a car to drive me all the back to LA and as I stared up at the moon, I told you goodnight..." she cracked a soft smile, even though she felt like her heart was so heavy in that moment. "I remember thinking that it was the only thing keeping us together..." she shrugged lightly, shaking her head as she dabbed the tissue under her eyes again. "I knew that we were always going to be staring up at the same moon each night, no matter where we were, so I've always relied on that to relay my nightly message to you." She admitted, even if it might have sounded slightly silly.
But it really didn't- not to Penny, who was crying so hard, she could barely even see through the tears. "I have your necklace." She announced in a mumbled voice as she used one hand to pull the Crescent moon out from under her sweater.
Nodding her head, Stevie let out a tear filled giggle. "I saw that."
"I've always felt connected to you in the same way." Penny admitted as she wrapped her hand around the gold pendant. "And I want, nothing more than for us to be able to figure out a way to have a relationship." She had always wanted that, but more so now that she'd met Stevie.
She didn't want to lose her mother again and feared that if she left that day without telling her, she could...
"Thank you." Stevie whispered, biting down on her lower lip lightly. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity to get to know you."
~~~
Penny spent the entire ride back to Santa Monica staring out the window, letting the tears roll down her cheeks as she thought in silence.
It was a very emotional experience and not just for her, but also for Stevie, who was also crying as she bid her daughter a farewell... She wasn't ready for her to leave yet, but the sun was setting and to expect her to call a cab any later would have been unfair.
So they promised to stay in touch and to plan something soon, even if it was just lunch... They were agreeing to be present in each other lives and that was the most important part.
Anyway, it was after nine when Penelope slipped through the front door of her fathers home, where the sound of the radio playing filled the air.
She usually didn't make the trip out to California very often, but she had a couple of doctors appointments out there and a few friends that she wanted to catch up with, so it worked out perfect... She got to take care of some health things, see some friends, be with her dad and also, above all that important stuff- she got to spend time with her mom, which suddenly meant the world to her.
"Smells like something got burnt." She announced with a soft smile the moment she stepped into the kitchen.
Lindsey was leaning back against the counter, holding a bowl of cereal in his hands as he watched her travel in. "I put pizza in the oven and forgot about it." He cracked a soft smirk, shaking his head in disbelief.
He might have been surprised, but Penny wasn't... Lindsey had never been much of a cook.
"Uh oh," She chuckled lightly as she set her purse down on the island. "Did you have a good day, other than that?" She wondered, brown eyes feeling very tired from all the crying she'd done, but hoping that he wouldn't take notice.
He nodded, shrugging one shoulder as he turned around to rinse out his bowl. "Wasn't too bad," he set his dishes in the sink- not in the mood to fill the dishwasher that night, so mentally reminding himself to do it in the morning. "I got some work done, and that was pretty cool." Lindsey let off another light grin when he turned back to face her.
"That is very cool." She teased as she sank down into one of the barstools across the island from him.
"How about you, kid?" He casually crossed his arms as his eyes traveled the circumference of her face.
He loved having her there, he always had, even if it wasn't all that much.
The thing was, when Stevie had first left, Barbara and Jess knew that Lindsey couldn't raise Penny all alone, so they agreed to keep her until he figured it out... It wasn't that easy for him either. He had planned to eventually marry Carol and that would have made it so much simpler with getting Penelope back, but when they broke up, that idea seemed to fall through.
He was always so busy at work and he didn't want a nanny to raise his daughter, so she stayed with her grandparents and their home became her home, while Lindsey's house was merely a vacation place to her.
It was tough, but it was worth it in the end, because Penelope was everything and more, which had a lot to do with how she grew up.
"I spent the day with Stevie..." she told him, which caused his heart to sink into the pit of his stomach instantly. "And I know that she's my mother."
