Stella first appeared on the show in the season three finale, after learning that Lynette had Hodgkin's lymphoma. She did not want her mother to know, but Lynette needed the money for chemotherapy, so Tom asked her. Stella arrives to Wisteria Lane and clashes with Lynette, but she tells her daughter that she would be staying for as long as Lynette would have to fight cancer to help her look after the Scavo kids. Stella continues to appear in the first episodes of the fourth season, still supporting Lynette, but also causing some trouble. When Lynette is cured from cancer, she tries to convince her younger sisters Lucy and Lydia to take Stella with them, but they refuse. Stella eventually leaves by herself. In episode eight, Lynette was looking for Stella, and learned that she had broken into a car and slept in it during one night. She then talks to her former stepfather, Glen Wingfield (Richard Chamberlain). Lynette had always thought that it was her mother's fault that the couple had divorced, but Glen told her he was gay. After they find Stella in a park, Glen agrees to let Stella stay with him, as he misses having her around.