"You're going to have to say it." [S1, Ep2 - Caroline to Kate]
"What is it you want darling?" Kate looked at her daughter as the 11 month old sat down heavily on the bottom stair, her lip wobbling.
"Wawaw! Wawaw!"
"Sweetheart, if I knew what you wanted, I would do my best to get it for you", Kate sighed as she said it. How can I not understand my own daughter? I'm a bloody languages teacher but I can't decipher what an 11 month old is trying to communicate to me!
"Wawaw!"
Kate decided to try the age old method of distraction, "Olivia, shall we go and play with your skittles?"
"Wawaw." Olivia was adamant.
"How about if we watch your programme?"
Olivia stuck her chin out defiantly, "Wawaw."
God, that is Caroline to a tee! How can she be biologically unrelated to her but have picked up so many of her traits? "Darling, shall we have a tea party?"
Olivia looked at her interestedly but tried one last, "Wawaw?"
"Not wawaw, no. We'll have a tea party instead." Kate held her hand out and after a pause and a thoughtful look (that again seemed to look like Caroline minus the piercing blue eyes), Olivia took her mum's hand and allowed herself to be led (and partly supported as her toddling hadn't quite developed to the levels required for totally independent walking) to the conservatory.
At Sulgrave Heath, Caroline was having a similarly frustrating non-conversation with her youngest son.
"Lawrence, if you won't tell me what the hell is at the root of this, how can I hope to understand?" The blonde headmistress looked at the recalcitrant teenager over her glasses from her seat behind her desk.
"Doesn't matter. You wouldn't understand anyway."
Caroline sighed inwardly. "Well, if you won't help me understand by trying to explain I'm just going to have to accept Mrs Hardy's version of events: that you had an argument in the middle of her class and hit George Sullivan." She allowed herself to sigh outwardly, "Lawrence, this isn't like you. Why did you hit George?"
"He pissed me off."
"Lots of things piss me off, on an almost hourly basis, but I can't get away with hitting people. And neither can you." She paused, then tried a different tack, "Did he insult you?"
"Well, yeah."
Lawrence's tone was insolent (all that seemed to be missing was the 'duh') but Caroline bit her tongue. "Ok. In what way?" There was no reply so Caroline tried again, "What did he say?" Still no reply. Caroline snapped, "Fine. If that's the way you want to play it. You will attend detention for the next week as Mrs Hardy said...and until you can treat me with a little respect and we can have an adult conversation you're grounded out of school as well."
Lawrence scoffed quietly, "Yeah, whatever."
Caroline gritted her teeth, "Insolence isn't helping you Lawrence. You've just lost your Xbox for a week too." She looked at her son, almost daring him to answer back. He said nothing. "Right, let's go home. I'm sure you have homework to do...which will also include writing a letter to Mr and Mrs Sullivan to apologise for hitting their son." Lawrence raised his eyes in horror to meet his mother's clear gaze but he wisely decided to say nothing further.
Caroline arrived home feeling frazzled. The conversation in the car with Lawrence had been nil so she'd turned the radio up to provide some light relief and forced jollity but if she was honest, all it'd done was to give her the start of a headache. As soon as they entered the house Lawrence disappeared upstairs and she heard the distant slam of his bedroom door. She walked into the kitchen to see Kate cooking and Olivia in her playpen at the edge of the dining room, where her mum could see her but she was out of the way enough to be safe.
"Ah my two beautiful girls", Caroline smiled at them.
Kate turned away from the stove, "Hi sweetheart." She came over and gave Caroline a kiss then drew back and stroked the blonde woman's forehead with her fingertips. "You ok, you look...stressed?"
From the playpen Olivia shouted, "Mama, mama, mama!"
Caroline smiled, "A bit. Lawrence has been a little..." she stopped herself saying what she was originally going to, "...trying." She walked over to the playpen. "Hello darling."
Olivia lifted her little arms toward the woman she instinctively called 'mama' (as opposed to the 'mumum' she seemed to call Kate) wanting to be picked up. Caroline obliged, picking her up and kissing her cheek before blowing a raspberry on her chubby neck. Olivia giggled, then looked quizzically at Caroline, "Wawaw?"
Caroline transferred her quizzical look to Kate, "Wawaw?"
Kate sighed, "I wish I knew. I've been trying to interpret that request all day but it seems to be beyond my language skills."
"Maybe Lawrence will know...although he's...not in the good books at the moment so may not feel...obliging."
"Why, what's happened?" Kate looked concerned.
"Well...he had an argument with George Sullivan in Rosemary's class and ended up hitting him."
"He hit him?! That doesn't sound like Lawrence. Why did he do that?"
"I wish I knew", Caroline sighed, "He won't tell me anything, other than George annoyed him and possibly insulted him in some way. He's in detention for the rest of the week, I've grounded him and had to ban him from his Xbox too." Kate raised her eyebrows in surprise and Caroline said, "I had to Kate, he was being a little...s h i t...", she spelled the word instead of saying it in front of Olivia, "...I grounded him and he just said insolently, 'whatever'. I wanted to slap him."
"Where's Lawrence now, in his room?"
"Yep. I'd better go and remove the Xbox I suppose."
"Wawaw", Olivia cut in, "Wawaw."
Caroline looked at her and smiled, "Nice suggestion, chubby cheeks, but wawaw just isn't going to cut it this time."
"Dow. Dow." Olivia wriggled in Caroline's arms, wanting to be put down.
"Shall I try and talk to him?" Kate's offer was genuine.
"You can try, darling but he seems so...distant at the moment." Caroline walked to the playpen to put Olivia back down.
As soon as Olivia touched the floor however, she had other ideas. "Up! Up! Wawaw! Wawaw!"
"Up or down Olivia? You can't have both, darling."
Kate looked at her partner lovingly. Caroline was always so patient with Olivia, despite the other stresses in her life and the long hours she often worked. "Caroline, how about you keep an eye on this...it just needs to simmer for the next 20 minutes or so...and I'll take Olivia upstairs with me and see if I can get Lawrence to talk?"
"You sure? You can leave Olivia with me?"
"No, Olivia is my 'break the ice' tool, you know how well they get on." Kate grinned, bending down to pick her out of the playpen.
Kate knocked on Lawrence's bedroom door. There was no immediate reply but cutely Olivia leaned out of her arms and tried to knock as well. Just as she was doing that Lawrence pulled the door open with his Xbox in his hands, obviously thinking it was his mother come to exact the punishment she had meted out. He drew up a little short when he saw it was Kate and Olivia as he clearly felt wrong-footed.
"Wawaw!" Olivia beamed at the teenager and leaned forward to be taken by him.
"Ah right, she's saying your name, Lawrence! That has been driving me mad all day!" Kate felt the relief of enlightenment.
"Yeah...she started saying that the other day, didn't I tell you?" Lawrence looked a little bashful.
Kate smiled, "Can we come in? Olivia clearly wants to see her big brother, she's been asking for you all day...now I understand what she's been saying!"
Lawrence stood to one side uncomfortably, "Yeah sure." He walked across the room and put his games console on his desk then went and sat on his bed.
Kate walked across the room and deposited Olivia on the bed next to Lawrence. She giggled and pulled herself up to stand next to her big brother looking at him almost coyly, "Wawaw".
He smiled at her, "Hey Livvy-Loo, how'd you do."
She beamed and crawled onto his lap. Lawrence held her and jiggled her up and down on his knee.
Kate, thinking this was as good a time as any to try to get through to him, said, "So...I hear there was some problem at school today."
Lawrence grimaced, "Mmmm."
"Not like you to get wound up enough to hit someone." Kate was deliberately keeping her tone light. "What did George say to get to you?"
"He's a tw...onk." He managed to change what he was going to say halfway through when he remembered Olivia was there.
"Uh huh. Don't you two play rugby together?"
"Yeah, sometimes." Olivia threw herself back against Lawrence in an attempt to get him to start the game again and he caught her, "Careful Olivia, you'll hurt yourself."
She smiled up at him, "Wawaw."
"She adores you", said Kate quietly. "She's going to look up to you all through her life. It's quite a responsibility, making sure you set her a good example."
"I know what you're trying to do", said Lawrence.
"All I'm trying to do is to understand why you're unhappy." Kate put her hand on his shoulder, "Just tell me Lawrence, I might be able to help."
"You'll just be upset", he mumbled.
"I'm a big girl Lawrence, I can handle it." She paused then ventured, "Was what George said about me...or Olivia?"
Lawrence looked mortified, then nodded.
Kate looked into his face and saw tears in his eyes. "What did he say?"
Lawrence swallowed, "He said...Olivia wasn't my proper sister and...I was part of a...screwed up pretend family."
Kate squeezed his shoulder, "Lawrence, that's just not true. What makes a proper family is love. Your mum loves you, I love you and Olivia definitely loves you. That makes us a family in my book. And...to be honest, George is probably jealous...he doesn't have any brothers or sisters, does he?"
"No, don't think so."
"You know you should've ignored him, don't you?" Kate said to Lawrence gently.
"S'pose."
Kate ruffled his hair, "C'mon then, bring your sister down, dinner's almost ready."
Lawrence picked up Olivia, "Dinner time, Livvy-Loo."
"Wawaw."
Later that night, in bed, Caroline burrowed her way past Kate's book to kiss her neck.
Kate smiled, "What was that for?"
"For you...because you're fabulous."
Kate pretended to carry on reading, "Yes, I am."
Caroline nuzzled her girlfriend's neck, "Mmmmmm...yes you are."
Kate tried to keep a straight face, "I can't see my book with you there."
"Are you sure you want to read?" Caroline nibbled Kate's neck.
"Why, what else did you have in mind?"
"You know...", Caroline said in as suggestive manner as she could muster as she kissed her way around Kate's jaw and towards her mouth.
"No...tell me."
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Nope."
"Kate!" Caroline nibbled the corner of the younger woman's mouth.
Kate smiled, "You're going to have to say it, Caroline..."