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Terry didn't sleep most of the night, his brain playing his conversation with Holt on repeat, trying to craft it in such a way that he wins, that he convinces Holt to file the report and stand by him. So he’s exhausted as he gets breakfast ready for the girls, which must explain why he hears Cagney ask for orgasm juice to go with her Honey Nut Cheerios.
He ducks his head out of the pantry and looks at her over his shoulder, squinting against the too-bright lamp hanging over the kitchen table.
“Um, you mean orange juice?” he says.
“Yes, please,” Cagney says.
She’s got Moo Moo – who’s looking pretty grimy, and Terry reminds himself to toss the toy in the laundry before he leaves for work – tucked under one arm while she works on their thank-you card. Lacey’s got her head pillowed on her arms on the table and is snoring softly. She’s never been a morning person.
Terry pours the juice for Cagney, chuckling to himself over the orange confusion and thinking he’s got to write that down to share with Sharon when she gets back. He heads back to the pantry for the box of Golden Grahams and gives it a shake, relieved that there’s enough for one more bowl.
“Lace,” Terry says, giving her chair a little shake as he sets the box on the table. “C’mon, baby, no sleeping at the table.”
Lacey groans and mumbles something into the table, but she sits up, rubbing at both eyes with her little fists, which is just about the most adorable thing Terry’s ever seen – he’s never going to get over how amazing his girls are.
Terry pours her cereal into a bowl and tops it off with milk and Lacey picks up her spoon and says, “I want orgasm juice too, Daddy.”
The milk sloshes over the top of the bowl and Cagney yelps as a few drops splash onto the thank-you card. “Daddy!”
“Sorry, hold on,” Terry says, automatic, and goes for a dish towel to mop up the mess, carefully blotting off the card. “So, uh, girls. Where did you hear about orgasm juice?”
“Amy Santiago,” they chorus.
“Uh huh.” Terry will never know how he manages it, but he says with no trace of humor or awkwardness in his voice, “And why were you talking about orgasm juice?”
“She and Jake said we could ask them anything,” Cagney says.
“So we asked what orgasms were,” Lacey says.
Terry sits down at the table across from his girls. “And Amy said oranges.”
“Yes!” they scream.
It doesn’t take long to unveil the rest of the previous night’s conversation. After he’s sent the girls upstairs to get ready for school, Terry sits at the table for a long time, staring at their empty chairs. His babies are only 6 years old. Their cereal bowls and their (orgasm) juice glasses are so small – they haven’t yet graduated to regular-sized dishes – and they’re only just learning their letters in school and Cagney sometimes lisps on her S’s and Lacey gets her numbers all turned around when she tries to count higher than 50.
Cagney’s left Moo Moo on the table, and Terry picks it up gently, holds it to his face and inhales. It smells of the girls’ shampoo and Crayons and strawberry fruit leather, and he thinks maybe he won’t wash it today after all.
He’s not sure what to make of Jake and Amy giving his daughters their first talk about racism. The girls are happy, and they are safe, and he can tell they were reassured by what they were told. And maybe it was for the best that the reassurance came from a white man and a Latina, because now the girls know that someone who is not their father or their mother is in their corner. They know they have allies, even if they don’t yet understand what that means.
He’s going to file the complaint, with or without Captain Holt, though he hates that it will be without. But he can’t stop thinking about Cagney and Lacey and tiny Ava, imagining them getting pulled over when they’re 16 and just learning to drive, imagining them scared and angry and hurt. If it was just Officer Maldack he could let it go, but it’s not. And he knows he’d be letting down his girls if he stepped aside, waited to rise through the ranks and let another generation do better.
“Daddy! We’re going to be late!”
Terry can’t tell which of his girls is scolding him. He’s reminded suddenly of when they were newborns and Sharon painted their thumbnails different colors – red for Lacey, blue for Cagney – so they could know who was who. It’s easy now, but he likes that they still sound so similar. It comforts him, reminds him that they’ll always have each other.
He grabs the sack lunches he made for them last night out of the refrigerator and calls out into the hallway, “Who needs a sandwich?”
“Me! Me!”
“Who needs a juicebox?”
“Me! I do!”
Terry jogs into the hall and holds the bags up over his head as the girls jump up and reach for him, a tiny pair of matching giggles and bouncing curls.
“Who needs an orgasm?” he yells, because he can’t help himself.
“We do! We do!”
On the drive to school he explains to his daughters that actually, orgasms are not oranges, and Amy just misspoke, and he silently thanks God that they don’t ask for an explanation, just nod solemnly from their carseats.
“Daddy?” says Lacey, when they’re about a block from the school.
“Hm?”
“Jake says I don’t have to be a woman if I don’t want to, and I don’t want to. Is that okay?”
Terry sighs and glances at Lacey in the rearview mirror, then at Cagney nodding vigorously beside her.
“Of course it is, sweetie,” he says. “We can talk about it some more when Mommy gets home.”
“Okay!”
And Terry thinks – he loves Jake and Amy. They’re great with the kids, so patient and generous and fun. But next time? Gina and Rosa are babysitting.