Patience

4

"So, what's with the secrecy and the telephone number?" Jessie asks when they're situated in the car. She's sitting between Stevie and Alec. 

"Um Jessie, there's something about me that you don't know...I had four abortions." Stevie starts.

"I know that...everyone in the world knows that." Jessie rolls her eyes.

"I had four abortions and one, barely full-term pregnancy," Stevie adds.

"What?" Jessie turns to her aunt.

"Lindsey and I slept together after the Clinton Inauguration. January 20, 1993. In March your mother had just announced her pregnancy with you, telling me she'd work on Street Angel with me but she wouldn't be touring. She told me about her symptoms and I came to the conclusion that I was experiencing the same exact thing. Minus the puking. So, I took a test I was turning 45 and I really didn't want to admit that it could've been menopause. The test was either going to prove to me that I was pregnant or menopausal. I was pregnant. Lindsey was dating Cheri Casperi and when I called him he was so excited about it. We worked things out with Cheri, Lindsey stayed at my house with me every other week, we discussed names and a nursery theme. There still wasn't great ultrasound technology at the time, so we never found out the gender. If it was a boy we were going to name him William Gregory and A girl was going to be Tori Paige. But something in my gut was telling me that it was going to be a girl so I crocheted a gray- because that could've gone with any gender-blanket, much like I did with Roman when he was born except it wasn't blue. Lindsey was there when she was born and he stayed in the hospital with me. I got to take her home the day after she was born. She was born at 2:08 in the morning on the sixteenth, and I got to take her home on the seventeenth around noon. I got to breastfeed her, she slept with me and Lindsey-he didn't tell Cheri we were sleeping in the same bed when he was at my house-and then two days later Cheri gave Lindsey an ultimatum. We knew that our lives weren't cut out for parenthood, so we decided that we were going to give her up. We told Ray Lindsey to find an adoption agency or something but he took her, her half-filled out birth certificate...we had six days to file it after her birth...and the blanket and the necklace."Stevie shrugs.

"And you think this Tori girl is your daughter?" Alec asks.

"I do that hair, those eyes, that face. She walked into the living room to distract us from that fighting couple upstairs my heart it...I don't know, it did something. Like it flipped and my stomach like got all bubbly." Stevie explains. 

"So how are you going about doing this?" Jessie sighs. 

"Yeah sis, just because you left her your number doesn't mean she's going to call you," Chris speaks up from the driver's seat. 

***

Alec and Jessie live in San Diego, and though Chris and Lori aren't married anymore the five of them are staying in the Pacific Palisades home because that's the "Family Home". 

Chris and Lori were in Stevie's master suite with her and Jessie knocked on the door. Chris called for her to come in and she entered just staring at them. 

Stevie was sitting on her bed, cross-legged surrounded by things...things she had only shared with Lindsey. In front of her, she had a golden frame and every time she peered at it her heart broke. She was in the hospital bed, having just given birth, her hair a sweaty mess falling out of a very poorly done Gibson. She was pretty much naked a blanket draped over her breasts where a crying little girl was placed. Stevie had one arm wrapped around her and the other she couldn't see, but she remembers what she was doing with it. She had it clutched in Lindsey's fist as the picture was taken by a nurse over Lindsey's shoulder. There was another Golden frame next to it of the day they left the Hospital. Stevie was sitting up in the bed, wearing her own pajamas and Lindsey was next to her and they were both peering down at little Tori Paige. Then there was a silver frame wrapped around a picture of just Tori the newborn picture where she's wrapped in the hospital blanket laying in the bassinet. She doesn't remember the pain of giving birth, she doesn't remember what she and Lindsey did to relieve it, but she does remember it taking 24 hours, and she hated that because she simply just wanted to meet her baby. She remembers the doctor yelling out 'It's a girl' and her heart fluttering. She remembers holding her after the doctors had cleaned her up and she did what every mother seems to do, she examined the little toes and fingers and she took the pink hat off of her head and ran her fingers through the brown hair that was curling at the ends. Tori had a good amount of hair which made sense because Stevie had a good amount of heartburn during pregnancy.

Other than the pictures, Stevie had three hospital bracelets-hers, Lindsey's, and Tori's. Then there were her baby's little tiny footprints and handprints. She even had the outfit that the baby wore home from the hospital. A white lightweight sleeper as it was September in California but it had little gray stripes on it. Stevie really only had what was on her bed with her as her memories of her baby. 

"Aunt Stevie, what is all of this?" Jessie asks.

"My most private parts." She sighs holding the golden just given birth frame out to her niece. 

"Oh wow." Jessie sighs sitting on the bed. 

"The only ones who have seen this are in this room and Lindsey. The nurse took it over Lindsey's shoulder right after she was placed on my chest. They were drying her off. Blood and Gunk and everything." Stevie sniffles. 

"I'm so sorry."Jessie shakes her head running her fingers along the sleeve of the onesie. 

"I know you are kiddo." Stevie sighs.

"No, I was born on September 27, She was born on the 16th, eleven days before I was...the same year, you must've been absolutely gutted." Jessie shakes her head.

"I had a moment, the first time I held you but I love you, you're my niece and I never once, never once held anything against you." Stevie hugs her niece. 

"Do you think she'll call?" Jessie asks.

"I have no idea baby. But I hope she does." She sighs.