Maria doesn’t mind, not exactly, but she is more than a little baffled.
When her baby - their baby, because being honest, this child was always Carol’s baby too - starts saying Dada.
It’s not what she calls Maria’s father, and there really aren’t any other men in the child’s life.
Maria and Carol together give the child more than enough healthy masculinity modeling.
So she’s baffled and maybe a little irritated - at the world, not at her child, never at her child - and she can’t help but hearing the bullshit people with their bullshit tssking and their bullshit raised eyebrows and their bullshit muttering of ‘well, that child deserves a father, young lady, don’t you think so?’
She’s baffled, that is, until a pattern becomes very, very clear: that little Monica is calling Carol Dada.
And she’s still baffled, but at least, now, it’s funny.
At least, now, it’s laughing in the face of people saying she needs a father, that Maria can’t do this on her own, that she’s hurting her child simply by having her, that she’s irresponsible and de facto a terrible mother because she’s a technically single woman and she’s Black and…
Well, apparently the child can see what other people refuse to: she is both the child of a single mother, and the child of two women together.
Because, holy shit. The kid is intuitively calling Carol Dada.
Carol doesn’t laugh, because she knows. She knows how much it means to Maria to be doing this without a man, to be doing this without being married, without being in any kind of relationship that anyone will recognize (or that anyone can recognize, because they’d both very much like to keep their jobs).
She doesn’t laugh, but she kisses Monica’s forehead and keeps a steady gaze on Maria.
“Where did she learn that?” Maria asks, her voice steady and low and pleasant, because Monica doesn’t need to hear a tone of voice that would suggest she did anything wrong by recognizing her other parent.
Carol shrugs and tilts her head. “Daycare, maybe? I mean, where else does she go? Unless she’s sneaking out at night and hitting up the clubs.” As Maria chuckles and rolls her eyes, Carol snuggles closer to Monica. “Is that what you’re up to, Lieutenant Trouble? Sneaking out of your crib at night and living up the wild Air Force night life?”
Monica giggles and Carol arches an eyebrow. “I think that’s all the confirmation we need.”
Maria rolls her eyes - again - and stands, kissing both daughter and girlfriend? wife? Carol, her Carol, as she crosses toward Monica’s little Air Force backpack.
“Oh. Oh.” She scowls, because one of them usually sorts through Monica’s backpack after dinner, while the other is bathing her, so they haven’t seen this yet.
Maria wordlessly slips the worksheet into Carol’s hands. About family. The (one and only, apparently) kind of family that the daycare thinks is valid and real.
Mama and Dada and children.
The worksheet encouraged the children to draw their mama and dada and siblings.
There was even a space for pets.
There was no space for Carol.
Except Monica made space. She had scribbled someone with yellow hair, someone whose shoulders and torso were brown instead of peach to indicate Carol’s brown leather jacket.
She had drawn Carol where the sheet said to draw Dada.
There was a note attached to the paper.
A note that asked Maria to please find an appropriate father figure to introduce into her daughter’s life, since clearly she was lacking in that department.
“She’s not lacking at all,” Maria muttered and - carefully, behind Monica’s back - tore the note to shreds - “Seems to me like she’s got all the second parent figure she needs.”
“And quite a handsome one,” Carol arched an eyebrow as she held Monica close and pulled Maria down to hold her close, too.
“Do you think it’ll stir up anything?” she murmured into her ear, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, because that was what families did.
Maria shook her head. “We chose this place because their closest military connection is Lawson. She’ll protect us, even if they do imply anything. Nothing that hasn’t been implied before, anyway.”
“Still.” Carol’s protective streak was thousands of miles wide. “We might want to teach her to call me something else. Auntie Carol?”
Maria grinned, and it was also a thousand miles wide. “You’re ridiculous. And adorable.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Carol. I don’t want you to feel… demoted. Like you… like you’re not…”
“Hey. I know what this is.” She kissed Maria’s mouth slow and steady and tender. “And I also know what the world is. Our priority has got to be our kid. And flying. Being able to fly. Okay? So if we have to teach the kid to call me a ridiculous name like Auntie Carol, I’ll just call her a ridiculous name back. Like…”
She lifted their baby into her arms and squinted at her plump little face, rubbing their noses together. Monica shrieked with giggles, and Carol nodded with certainty.
“Like Lieutenant Trouble. How about that, huh? You learn to call me Auntie Carol and I’ll learn to call you Lieutenant Trouble? Yeah? You like that, Lieutenant Trouble?”
Monica kept giggling, and Carol nodded gravely, making Maria giggle as well.
“It’s decided, then.”
She turned to Maria, sober and solemn. “I do not feel sidelined. I promise. We’re a family, no matter what we call it. I promise.”
“I promise, too,” Maria murmured as they settled back into each other’s arms.