Catherine just winged it as she confidently replied, "Eleven months. Her name is Caitlin."
"Well, Caitlin," he said, "I hope you have fun today."
"It’s her first flight," Catherine informed him. "Do you have any tips?"
"It usually helps if you give her a bottle," he said knowledgeably. "Swallowing keeps their ears open. Most babies really hate takeoffs. So don’t be surprised if she screams."
"Can you warm a bottle for me?" Catherine asked, having made sure there was one in the backpack that they carried on.
"Sure. Let me pop it in the microwave right now."
"Oh, no," Catherine said immediately, having learned her lesson from Ryan. "It’s breast milk, Scott. Could you heat it by running warm water over it?"
"Sure. No problem," he agreed. "We should be taxiing to the runway in a few minutes, but we will probably have a wait for clearance. Even though the seat belt light will go on, don’t bother putting her in her car seat right then. I’ll come tell you when we’ve been cleared for takeoff."
"Thank you, Scott," she said, giving him a winning smile.
"No problem. Babies are my favorite passengers," he enthused, patting the baby lightly on the head. Catherine took out a bottle of formula from the backpack under her seat and handed it to Scott. As he walked away, the seat belt light came on and the pilot announced that they were ready to depart.
Scott scampered back with the warmed formula and announced that they had been cleared immediately. "We’re next!" he said. "Buckle her up!"
Ryan leapt across the aisle to secure Caitlin into her seat. She worked very quickly and managed to get the baby settled and hop back into her own seat just as they started to taxi. Catherine placed the bottle into Caitlin’s mouth and she willingly started to suck away. She had been up since six and it was getting close to naptime, but they all expected that the excitement of the day would disrupt her schedule. To everyone’s amazement, she settled down into her seat and leaned her head back as her eyes started to blink much more slowly. The cabin was rattling and shaking as the sound of the engines filled the plane, but the noisier it got, the more relaxed Caitlin became. She gave a small start when the wheels tucked into their housings, but other than that she was completely oblivious to the entire procedure.
Ryan looked up from Caitlin’s sleeping form to notice both Catherine and Jamie staring at the baby in open-mouthed astonishment. She caught Catherine’s eye and gave her a little shrug along with a bemused grin. Catherine shook her head as a gentle smile covered her face. She placed her hand on the baby’s head and tenderly stroked her sleeping face as she gazed at her. She finally tore her eyes away and said, "That’s just how Jamie was. The first flight we took was to Europe when she was about five months old. She slept through the takeoff like she was born to fly," she fondly recollected.
"I didn’t know that," Jamie said as she leaned over Ryan to make eye contact with her mother.
"I was totally surprised at how you behaved," she admitted. "I thought you’d hate it because I’d heard all of these horror stories about babies screaming for twelve hours straight. But you never seemed to mind flying. You know, part of the reason I’m so enthralled with this little one is that she reminds me so much of you, Honey. You were sweet and happy and calm, just like she is."
"Oh, she’s far from calm when Ryan gets her riled up," Jamie assured her mother. "But she is awfully happy." She looked down at the baby for a few moments, then asked, "Was I really happy like that?"
"Oh yes," she assured her daughter. "I always got two compliments about you. One was how beautiful you were, and the other was how happy you were. You weren’t very loud, and you didn’t like to go to strangers like Caitlin will, but you were definitely happy." She gave Jamie a concerned look and asked, "Does that surprise you?"
"No, I suppose not. It’s just that you’ve rarely talked about how I was as a baby. I guess I assumed that you didn’t have anything positive to say."
"Well, we’re going to remedy that, Jamie. I have nothing but positive things to say about your youth, and you’re going to hear little tidbits every time I think of one," she promised.
Jamie graced her with a beaming smile as she admitted, "I’d really like that, Mom."
She settled back into her chair and Ryan brought her lips close to her ear to ask, "When did you start calling her Mom? I noticed it yesterday, but I forgot to ask."
"In Rhode Island," she informed her. "She just started to seem like a mom."
"I’m glad," Ryan said, threading her fingers through Jamie’s. "Mother always sounded more like an obligatory title than a term of affection."
"I think it was," Jamie admitted as she leaned her chair back to take her own little morning nap. Within minutes her head had dropped to the side, and Ryan lifted the armrest and scooted closer so her partner could avail herself of her shoulder. Jamie slept peacefully for nearly an hour, finally waking to find Ryan’s head resting on her own. Even in the awkward position she was fairly comfortable nestled into the warm body, so she closed her eyes again and rested until the pilot announced that they were approaching L.A.
Ryan’s head popped up as soon as the pilot made the announcement. Jamie once again marveled at her ability to wake so quickly, noting that her eyes were bright and focused and a happy smile graced her face. "Sleep well, Honey?"
"Yeah," Ryan purred, launching into a shortened version of her stretching routine, as befitted her quick nap. Jamie rubbed her back briskly as the taller woman leaned over to unkink while Catherine watched their routine with an amused grin. Jamie looked over at her mother with a little shrug as she explained; "She gets stiff when she sleeps. Even in a first class seat, that’s a lot of body to fold into a small space."
"You should see me flying coach to Ireland," Ryan smirked. "I pop in and out of my seat so many times that I look like a jumping jack!"
"Your coach days are over," Jamie declared, giving Ryan one of her best "don’t argue with me" looks.
"That’s where you’re wrong, Punkin," Ryan averred, tweaking Jamie’s nose playfully. "My teams fly coach. I’ve got a full year of tiny seats on tiny planes to look forward to."
"Tiny planes?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah. We have to go to Corvallis, Oregon and Pullman, Washington, and large commercial jets don’t fly there."
"You could always charter a private jet…" Catherine began, but Ryan dropped her chin and narrowed her eyes, giving her motherin-law a stern look of warning.
"Oh my," the older woman said. "Is that the look of someone who’s putting her foot down?"
"It is," Jamie decided, leaning over Ryan to double check. "The eyes get very narrow, see," she indicated, drawing her index finger down the ridge of furrowed skin between Ryan’s eyes. "And the mouth becomes a grim line." She tried to insert a finger between Ryan’s lips, but they were pressed together so forcefully that she couldn’t make any headway. Unable to maintain her scowl while she was being played with, Ryan burst into a fit of giggles, her eyes dancing merrily as Jamie gave her a good tickle.
Catherine gazed at the playful pair. "I find it amusing how comfortable you seem with each other," she observed. "You act like you’ve been together for years, rather than weeks."
"I’ve got to admit that it feels that way to me," Jamie admitted, slipping an arm around her partner. "But even though we’ve only been intimate for a little while, we spent a ton of time together before that. We just know each other really well," she added as she continued to rub her partner’s back, to Ryan’s obvious pleasure.
The seat belt light came on and Scott, the flight attendant, came by to check on everyone. Caitlin looked like she was about to wake up since her little hands had begun to twitch, but she stayed asleep until the plane actually hit the runway. When the cabin bounced heavily, her head jerked up and her eyes flew open. While the plane continued to bounce, the engines roared mightily as they struggled to slow the craft. Her little face began to scrunch up into a frown and Ryan prepa
red herself for a scream, but the baby turned her head and caught sight of Ryan and Jamie and after a few blinks, a sweet little smile settled onto her face. The adults all smiled back, and within seconds she was gurgling and wriggling around in her seat. Even though they were still rolling towards the gate Ryan thought it safe to remove her, so Catherine began the extraction.
Once free, Caitlin settled happily onto Catherine’s lap, accepting her après-nap snuggles from this relative stranger. Her T-shirt was damp with sweat but Ryan decided to leave it on her, given the 80-degree temperature that the pilot had just announced.
"Toss her over and I’ll go change her before we get off," Ryan suggested.
"I’ll do it," Catherine replied confidently as she pulled a fresh diaper and a packet of baby wipes from the backpack. She settled her little charge onto her hip and made her way back to the restroom, leaving both Ryan and Jamie to stare after her in shock.
"She wants to change her diaper?" Jamie asked slowly. "I don’t know that she’s ever done that before."
"Are you sure they didn’t switch mothers on you when you were in Rhode Island? She sure seems like a different person."
"I don’t know what happened, but I’m not complaining," Jamie decided.
20 minutes later they were cruising out of LAX in a full-sized limousine. Ryan was busy playing with all of the buttons and gadgets, much to the amusement of Catherine and Jamie. "Hey look!" she shouted, "there’s a refrigerator!" She continued to scoot around on the big seat facing her companions, trying to take in all of the amenities.
"Haven’t you ever been in a limo before?" Catherine asked, charmed by the young woman’s boundless enthusiasm.
"Umm, just for my mother’s funeral," she replied rather absently as she found the remote control for the TV. "Check it out! We can watch a movie!"
Catherine didn’t know if she should apologize for her question, but since Ryan seemed so happy she assumed that she hadn’t put a damper on her mood. "Not even for your prom?" the older woman asked, to steer the conversation onto a brighter note.
"Nope," Ryan said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Never had a date with a boy, and none of the girls would go with me." She waggled her right eyebrow, fixing Catherine with a devilish grin. "Believe me, I asked."
Catherine was flabbergasted at this revelation. "You’ve never been with a man?"
Ryan gave her a big smile as she confirmed, "Neither man nor boy."
"She’s untouched by the Y chromosome," Jamie said with a chuckle. "Although not many double X’s have escaped her."
Catherine tried to hide her amazement, but she had a tough time of it. "I just assumed that most women would experiment with men and then decide it wasn’t right for them. I mean…I don’t want to be indelicate, but how can you be sure you’re gay if you’ve never even been kissed by a man?"
Ryan gave her a deceptively innocent smile as she asked, "How many women have you kissed, Catherine?"
Jamie was afraid she was going to have to catch her mother’s eyeballs as they popped out of her head, but Catherine quickly regained her composure as she answered, "Well, none."
"Then how do you know you’re not a lesbian?" Ryan followed up with the logical corollary.
Catherine just shook her head as she turned to Jamie and said, "She’s a quick one, isn’t she?"
"Extremely," Jamie agreed as she blew Ryan a kiss, thinking of the vast numbers of times she had been caught by that quick mind.
The rest of the ride was spent retrieving Caitlin’s little plastic blocks as she threw them from her car seat. Her desire to play the game was unquenchable, and by the time they reached Anaheim, Catherine was marveling at Ryan’s patience. "Ryan, you’ve been picking up those same toys for over an hour! She’s certainly got you well trained," she chuckled.
Ryan gave her a puzzled look as she replied, "Trained? She’s not training me, Catherine. She’s thinking."
"That doesn’t look like thinking to me, Ryan. That looks like she’s trying to get you to satisfy her needs."
"Well, that’s true, after a fashion. But I think her needs are to test a theory in an extremely thorough fashion."
"Whatever do you mean?" Catherine asked, completely confounded.
"The only way she learns anything is by doing little experiments. Like any good scientist, she has to do them often enough, and under varied conditions, to make sure the results aren’t just a fluke."
"What is she testing now?" Catherine asked, her dark eyes holding a hint of challenge.
"I think she’s trying to prove that the block gets to the floor because of her actions. She’s just at the very beginning of understanding cause and effect. It looks to me like she’s just discovered that she is the cause of the block hitting the floor. I honestly don’t think the effect is all that important to her yet."
"Don’t try to argue with her about scientific theories, Mom. She’ll make your head throb," Jamie advised.
"I’m sure of that," she agreed gamely as Ryan bent to pick up the block one more time. She was obviously unable to concede the point, however, because she pointed out, "Why does she look at you after she throws it, if she’s not trying to make you retrieve it?"
"She does watch me, but watch how she watches me," Ryan instructed. All three women kept a close watch on exactly where Caitlin focused during the next round.
"It looks like she’s watching your face," Jamie observed.
"Precisely!" Ryan agreed. "I think she’s watching to see if I share her joy about this new discovery. If she was just trying to make me do something, I think she would watch the toy—but she seems to lose interest in the toy as soon as she releases it. See," she said, handing the block back again, "as soon as she tosses it, she looks at me. When I smile back at her to encourage her, she gets excited. I really think we’re sharing a moment."
Catherine shook her head for a moment before she turned to Jamie. "Does she put this much thought into everything?"
"Yep," she conceded as she shot her lover an affectionate glance. "I don’t think she does anything that she hasn’t considered thoroughly."
"I think Da might disagree with you, Honey," Ryan gently reminded her. "I think his most common question when I was growing up was, ‘Siobhan, do you ever think before you act?’ "
Ryan hadn’t even bothered to ask where they were staying, and she was a bit surprised to find that they headed into the Disneyland Hotel. She had secretly thought they’d be staying in some elegant little hotel and taking a cab to the park, and she was pleased to find that they were going to be right in the midst of things.
As a bellman unloaded their bags, Ryan removed the car seat with Caitlin still in it. It wasn’t the easiest thing to carry the baby in the seat, but she thought it made more sense than carrying both separately, especially given how crowded the lobby was. When they got inside, Catherine assessed the situation quickly spotting a sign that said "Concierge Check-In". "Be right back," she instructed, setting off confidently.
Cait wanted out of her restraints to join the dozens of kids lounging on the floor in front of a very large screen television watching "The Mighty Ducks," but Ryan knew that was a loser bet, so she tried to distract her while they waited. Thankfully, Catherine handled things quickly, and she was back in a few moments, bearing plastic key cards for each of them.
Their rooms were on the top floor of the Sierra building, and Ryan was impressed to find that Catherine had reserved a suite. The two bedrooms flanking the common living room were both generously sized, and one held a roll-away crib. "You’ve done well here, Catherine," Ryan complimented her as she went to the room with the crib.
"Ryan, why don’t you let me sleep with the baby?" the older woman asked.
After she argued with herself for just a moment, Ryan’s good sense won out and she shook her head. "That’s beyond generous of you to offer, but she’s often a little frightened when she wakes in the middle of the night. I think it would freak her out if I wasn’t there when she wakes."
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"I just thought you girls could use some alone time," she persisted, knowing that she was getting into some personal issues, but wanting to make sure that her guests enjoyed themselves.
"We’re fine, Catherine," she insisted. "Really." Jamie was quiet during this interchange, knowing that Ryan understood Caitlin’s needs better than she. She really didn’t mind having the baby in their room—had, in fact, expected it--but she was touched that her mother was so generously offering to watch her through the night.
"All right, Dear, I’m sure you know best. I just hope that you’ll take some time to be alone if you need it."
"We will," Jamie piped up. "Thanks, Mom."
After a quick reassurance call to Annie and Tommy, Ryan spent a good deal of time carrying Caitlin around to investigate every nook and cranny of their rooms. When she came back into the large communal living area she nearly shrieked with delight when she spied the large basket filled with fruit, wine, cheese, and chocolate. "Jamie, look! They left us food!"
Jamie gave her a high wattage grin as she came over to offer a hug. "Good food, too, from the looks of it," she agreed. Turning to her mother, she asked suspiciously, "How did you manage to get this great room in the middle of the summer with one day’s notice?"
"Oh, I have some contacts in the Disney organization," she said lightly as she carried her bag into the smaller of the two bedrooms.
"Mother…," Jamie said in a threatening tone, "spill it!"
"Okay," she agreed as she came back into the main room. "I worked to help secure funding for the new symphony hall being built in L.A. I made some friends through my work who were able to help me pull a few strings."
"Is that your complete statement?" she asked, imitating her father.
"Yes, dear, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it," Catherine declared. "Now let’s get some lunch."
"Isn’t this lunch?" Ryan asked as she busily sorted all of the foodstuffs located in the big basket. "We’ve got enough wine to get us well oiled, plus soakage!"
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