Chapter 6
Picnics with Nana were Sarah’s favourite thing about the warmer weather. And with Summer coming to a close, welcoming in the Autumn months the picnics outside would soon be placed temporarily on hold until Spring.
Cutting up the last few of the sandwiches, Steve placed them in their picnic basket, the same one from his childhood, grabbed the drinks, then went to check that Sarah was ready. When he walked to her room, the door only open a few inches, he saw her hunched over the small desk colouring with such purpose he felt rude for intruding.
Moving away, he went to put on his own shoes and made sure everything was packed and ready before slowly walking back to Sarah’s room, gently knocking on the door.
“I’ll be ready in a minute, Daidí.” Sarah said before Steve could even get a word out.
“What are you working on? Can I have a look?” Steve asked.
He always made sure Sarah knew, and had the right, to her privacy. Because while she was his daughter, she was also an equal in his house. If he could have his privacy, so should she. She knew not to break his trust and that he would have to implement consequences if she did. So, he always made sure to ask her if he could see what she was doing.
Nodding her head, Steve walked in and crouched down next to her and picked up the piece of paper. A soft expression fell over his face as his eyes took in the picture in front of him. On the paper sat a stick figure Steve, Peggy, Angie Sarah, and Sarah Sr. Steve in his signature blue, Peggy in her uniform, Angie in one of her theatre costumes, Sarah in her favourite Snow White dress, and his Ma in a nurses outfit. Above them all, smiling and holding hands, sat the words ‘My Family.’
“Miss Simmons said for our homework we had to draw our family. Do you like it, Daidí?” She asked, looking at him with the matching eyes of himself.
“Of course I do. It’s our family.” He answered, smiling, before telling her to go put her shoes on. As she left the room, he whipped out his phone to take a photo to send it to Peggy later. He knew it would mean a lot for her to see Angie added to family pictures.
Peggy and Angie first became friends when Steve treated her to see a play on Broadway. Sarah was a year old and Peggy was home for three months working part time at the New York branch so she could be there for Steve and Sarah. When she saw that a favourite play of hers was on Broadway, Steve decided to take Peggy out that night because while they weren’t together they were still friends and had a child together. Sarah jumped at the opportunity to babysit her granddaughter and let the two go out for the night. When the show ended and the cast came out for autographs, Angie immediately captivated Peggy’s eye. Seeing the look on her face Steve backed away, not wanting Peggy to lose her shot, and she came back with Angie’s number.
It took a few more years before the two became an item, and when Peggy told Steve she had told him about how unsure she was adding someone to Sarah’s life.
“I know she is too young to understand, but I don’t want to make her life more complicated. Steve, we know that us together as a couple doesn’t work, and we are doing a great job like this but when she goes to school. I don’t want kids to bully her because her parents aren’t together and her Mummy is with a woman.” Steve had never seen Peggy so scared before. Even when she found out she was pregnant and then in labour, she treated it all well with no negative emotions at all. Well, she did scream at Steve a few times for putting this baby in her. Sarah got a few laughs that Peggy would share once the baby was out of her.
Steve had managed to calm her down and then helped talk her through it.
“Sarah is too young to know a lot of things. But you shouldn’t hold back because of potential bullies. Peg, I dealt with bullies everyday for most of my schooling life, and I turned out fine. That girl is equal parts me and you, she can deal with anything. And I heard her mother is pretty scary too, no one would want to mess with her.”
While Steve, for once, managed to help Peggy see the clear image, it didn’t mean that Angie still felt distant in their family. It was the four of them. Steve, Peggy, Sarah, and Sarah Sr. Angie felt like an outsider no matter how many times they all made her feel welcome. So, with Sarah adding her into the family picture for her classmates to see, Steve knew that both her and Peggy would love to see it.
Placing the picture down, Steve walked out of Sarah’s room to see her standing by the door with the picnic basket in her hand all ready to go. Chuckling to himself, he grabbed his wallet and keys locking the door behind the two.
Sarah sat in the back seat guarding the picnic basket with her life while signing along to the music playing on the radio. Steve had tried to with educational albums, and other music made for kids but alas Sarah did not approve. She had managed to take a great liking to Irish Music, but nothing could beat the Frozen soundtrack. To which, he was now having to listen to Anna and Hans sing about love for the millionth time in the past week.
Pulling up his Ma’s street, Steve saw her standing outside on the footpath in her favourite summer dress with a cardigan placed over top to battle the cooling weather starting to come through. Parking outside where she was, she hopped into the car as Sarah was bouncing up and down excited to see her Nana.
Small talk was made between Steve and his Ma, before she got roped into singing ‘In Summer’ because it always made Sarah laugh. While this may not have been the future Steve had envisioned for himself 10 years ago, he knew he would never trade this for the world. Because most of his world was in the car right now.
Finding a park was always easier said than done. After five minutes of driving around, Steve finally managed to find somewhere while both his Ma and daughter made fun of his driving skills.
“You’re 6, you can’t criticize my driving because you can’t even drive.” Steve said as he poked his tongue out to his daughter, getting a belly laugh out of her that Sarah had to pick her up and carry her to their picnic spot.
Their picnic spot had been chosen before Steve was born and he and his Ma, later joined by Bucky, would sit every Sunday in the warm weather. Steve was told that when his parents first came to America this was one of their favourite spots they would visit almost daily. Then when he was born, they would still visit both the park and spot as much as they could. But when Joseph Rogers passed away when Steve was only three, Sarah continued the walks and picnics as it made her feel close to her husband. Bucky then joined the picnics a few months after becoming friends and came every single time. A few years before university and the army, when Sarah got her cancer diagnosis, she slowly stopped being able to go but the two boys kept the tradition alive. Steve felt it as a good way to feel close to his parents, and Bucky saw it as his only way out of the house that wasn’t for school.
But now his Ma was better, Bucky was back in his life, and he now had a daughter he could carry the tradition along with.
Walking the distance from the car to their spot, Sarah and his Ma walk just in front of him hand in hand with Sarah chatting all about her very interesting week at school as well as her new friend. The new friend who Steve hadn’t told his Ma was his best friend's daughter. By the way his Ma turned her head and raised her eyebrows at him for a split second, Steve could guess that Sarah told her. And he knew the second that Sarah went to play on the playground that she would ask him.
Reaching their spot, Steve set down the picnic blanket as Sarah sat down with the basket reaching in for the food. Laughing at his daughter's behavior, Steve sat down next to her, placing the basket in the middle and removing the food for them all to enjoy.
Racing her food down to go on the playground, Sarah finished her bite of her sandwich before asking to go play. Smiling at the excitement, Steve let her play but to stay close where they could see her.
“That little girl idolizes you, you know.” His Ma said, as Sarah ran to the swings talking to some of the kids nearby.
“Yeah, I know. She’s a great kid.”
“And you’re a great Daidí. Exactly the same way as your own.”
Every mention of his father both upset him and cheered him up. He had lost count the amount of times his Ma was apologetic that he didn’t have a father to grow up with and that he just had her. But he told her that their family was unique. He told her that he had her, but he also has the Barnes’, that they were also their family too. And with that Sarah felt for the first time since Joseph's passing that her son would have the family she wanted to give him, it just looked a little different to everyone else’s.
“How are you doing with seeing Bucky again?” She asked him, not beating around the bush.
“Good. It was weird how I saw him again, but I am glad.” Steve answered honestly. It was weird. This was a man he had planned a future with as a couple, and even before they knew they would be in the other's future no matter what. And while he guessed they were still living up to some sort of the promise, it definitely wasn’t in the way he was expecting.
“And what about him not remembering you two being together?” She asked casually while Steve spat out his drink, not expecting that question to appear. “What you didn’t think Sam wasn’t going to tell me?”
“W-what do you mean?” Steve asked, his voice raising a few pitches and redness screaming across his face.
“Sam never told me you two were together, that I figured out on my own, he did tell me that Bucky didn’t seem to remember the last while back home. Steve, I do have eyes my dear. The way that the two of you looked at each other was the same way I looked at your father. And when he left I had never seen you look at him the way you had. Then the letters, the calls, and when they stopped.” She placed her hand on his shoulder looking out to where her granddaughter was giggling with the other children on the playground. “I spent months worrying if you were going to be okay. I wasn’t going to say anything to you then because I didn’t want you to feel worse. But it has been six years, I figured you should know I knew.” Sarah smiled at him with her motherly gaze.
It wasn’t like he was ashamed of being bi or being with a man, it was just that it was all so fresh. And with Bucky not being out and deployed he was happy to wait for him to return before anything was said to either of their parents. But, of course, his Bucky never came home. A Bucky did, but he was still unsure if this was the same man from before, because that man wouldn’t have forgotten his boyfriend or better yet his best friend.
Still, there was a version of him that did return. A version that made a life for himself, got a degree, a career, a house, has a child who is friends with his own daughter. When he saw him and the life he had created after him, Steve was worried there was no room for him in it without feeling like he was forcing himself in. Thinking this, he voiced his worries to his Ma as Sarah stayed happy on the playground.
“Steve, he may be a different man now, but somewhere inside him is still that same Bucky Barnes. The two of you have been in each other's lives longer than not. Even when he was away, and then these years without him he has still been there in your head, don’t lie to me either boy. You don’t think I never saw that expression on your face when Sarah would say or do something the two of you would have done. You were both important to each other and you will be able to go back into his life the way you both see fit.”
“You’re starting to sound like Peg, you know.” Steve replied back, half speaking under his breath.
“Well, she is a smart woman, and the two of you did give me one of the best things to exist.” His Ma said, as they both watched Sarah run over to them giggling falling into Steve’s arms.
The truth was when Sarah had found out that her son was going to be a father she was mortified. He was young, Peggy was also young with a bright future ahead of her. She always did love Peggy. The way that she never held back was she had to say, it made dinner with the three of them interesting. But when they came over for dinner that night and announced the pregnancy and they weren’t getting married but rather splitting up, Sarah had to quickly excuse herself from the table. She wasn’t as religious as her parents had raised her, but she was still a woman of the church and even with changing times, times that she adapted to quicker than other church goers, she still needed a while to wrap it around her head. Coming back to the table with a nervous Steve and Peggy she politely asked if the topic could be dropped tonight to allow her time to think. Unsure of her reaction, both Peggy and Steve accepted and they moved on with the night like normal.
Once she thought about it, and asked them both a million questions, Sarah was enthusiastic about the idea of being a Nana. With Peggy’s parents back in England, Sarah took over the role of helping and preparing her whenever she needed. And when Steve said something that caused her to be upset or angry, Peggy always got to Sarah’s first. It was safe to say the two were still close even though they weren’t together and Peggy travelled for work. When they found out that they were having a girl, it was then they started deciding on names. Grace, Lily, Autumn, Elizabeth, Evelyn, Luna, and many more were thrown around before Peggy was the one to suggest naming her after Sarah. Tears were spilt from all there when they asked if they could name their daughter after her, and that was the moment Steve felt like he got replaced as the favourite child.
Steve, Sarah, and Sarah Sr packed up their mess as the clouds started rolling over and threatening to spill down on them. Dropping his Ma off at home, Steve and Sarah got back to their house just in time for Peggy’s call.
Running inside, Sarah took off her shoes and jumped down on the couch as Steve chuckled to himself while grabbing the laptop and setting up the call. Sitting down beside his, very enthusiastic, daughter, he opened the laptop and waited until the ‘online’ symbol flashed by Peggy’s face. As soon as it turned green, Sarah leapt forward clicking on the phone symbol and soon enough Peggy popped up on the screen.
“Sarah, Steve, darlings, how are you?” Peggy asked, the stress of the day seemed to wipe away when her daughter smiled at her.
“We good Mummy. We just got home from a picnic with Nana because it was gonna báisteach but it was lots and lots of fun. Daidí made my favourite sandwiches too.” Sarah rattled off as if she had been given too much sugar, when in actual fact, she only had one small treat.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Steve announced looking between the screen and his daughter. “Come on and get in twenty minutes, milseán.” He turned and informed Sarah before waving a short goodbye to Peggy and left the room.
He was with Sarah all day every day when Peggy was away so he knew how important it was for the two of them to have their time together. Also with the time that he had, short that it may be, it gave him time to load the dishwasher, washing machine, and put away the picnic basket and blanket.
It also gave him time to think.
Think about how lucky he was mostly. Peeking from the open kitchen into the lounge, he could see Sarah excitedly telling Peggy about her week with no detail left out as she watched her with love and sadness in her eyes.
Peggy had once told him that she hated being so far away from home. She wanted to be there for Sarah and watch her grow, but she had also worked so hard for her career. Steve felt guilty that she felt guilty. He got to work from home and be there for Sarah all the time. Every minute was spent in the same space, unless Sam forced him out or until she went to school. Steve did his best to document all the important moments Peggy missed. Her first step, first word (which was Mama), trying solid foods, and every other thing he could think of. But he always knew it could never match actually being there, because he knew what it was like to be there.
For Sarah’s second birthday, Peggy was able to be home and the moment everyone left she broke down. Steve had never seen her cry like this, nevertheless in front of his Ma as well. She was someone who would cry only if needed and in the privacy of her own space, rarely would she cry in front of others. When she was able to get out her reason, Sarah Sr took a seat next to her layed down the hard truth.
“It sucks, it really does. And we do all wish you could be here all the time but you aren’t. Because you are working your ass off to provide a comfortable life for yourself and your family and building a career you deserve more than anyone else here. Sarah is young, all she cares about is when her Mum is home, and when she gets older all she will see is a mother who loves and cares for her and sometimes that involves having to make a few sacrifices. You think I didn’t have to make sacrifices with Steve? God, Winnie and Bucky probably took more care of him being sick than I did. But they helped, I had to get help from a boy and his family because he wanted to be friends with my son. You have Steve, Me, Sam, Riley, and even Angie. Family and friends. Steve and I, we were alone for years, and even when Bucky came into our lives it took a while for us to accept their help. You have all of us now. So yeah, you might miss out on some milestones but you are giving that girl the life she deserves, and while not as much as you’d like she still gets to see you. Steve never got Joseph.”
And with the thought of Peggy, Sarah came running in to grab Steve’s attention and off he went to talk to his ex-girlfriend.
Walking back into the living room, Steve sat down in front of the computer as Sarah went off to her room before saying goodbye to her Mum once more. Steve went to open his mouth but before a single word could come out, Peggy spoke.
“Bucky’s back.” She said, not looking for confirmation but stating the fact.
“Well, hello to you too Peg. Yes he is.” Steve greeted and confirmed.
“Yes, hello. But Bucky is back. And does he have any explanation on why he stopped replying.” There was no bullshit with Margaret Carter, and she was displaying the quality with a beam of light right now.
“He doesn’t seem to remember. Or he is just ignoring those months.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Gosh, Peg, what are you? A therapist now? I can’t think much. Sarah is friends with Lottie and I am not messing up that for them because of a little crush on Bucky!” Steve argued back. He didn’t want to say something only for Bucky to tell him that he was ashamed of that time together and wants all that to be forgotten. He wouldn’t be able to face him and then it would impact Sarah and Lottie’s friendship, and he would never do that to his daughter.
“It wasn’t a little crush. Steve, you loved him, and by god did he love you back. Or so I thought. What you need is to talk to him, see what he remembers. Something might have happened over there to cause enough PTSD to not remember clearly around that time. To him, he might see it as a dream to get him through the Army. The mind is a strange, wonderful, and horrifying thing.”
She was right, of course he was right. Steve had thought that his memory may have been affected but never knew if it was possible or if he was just thinking that to save him from the rejection he thought he would always receive.
They stayed talking about simple things, work, and Sarah for the next 15 minutes before she had to go. Calling out to their daughter, Sarah came running in, and overlaying goodbyes were spoken from all parties before the call had to make its unfortunate end.
Every time they had one of these calls, Sarah would walk away with her shoulders slumped. She knew why her Mum had to be away for weeks at a time, but Steve had always told her that even though she understood she was allowed to miss her because he missed her too. So she did. She became less talkative and just wanted to be left alone sometimes. Steve hated it. He despised seeing his daughter like this because there was nothing they could do. So it was always an easy night and day following. Before she started school, they would go see Sam and Riley to play with the kittens they were fostering at that time, and then do one fun thing she wanted to do. But now with her at school, Steve didn’t really want to pull her out for the day. And when he asked if she wanted to go to school the next day, she said ‘yes’ but he still said that they could go see the kittens after school.
‘It wouldn’t be long,’ Steve thought, looking at Sarah drawing a picture of her and Peggy, ‘till she is working here for good.’