Work Text:
“Who's that?”
Naomi glances out the window, attention more on trying to find her missing book than her words as she absently answers, “My stepmom.”
“Your stepmom?”
Her friend’s voice is laced with so much confusion that she blinks, actually considering what she’d said.
Liv has met her dad’s girlfriend – well, fiancé now – and she knows this isn’t her.
Tammy doesn’t pick her up often, just when her mom is stuck with paperwork or when she randomly declares they need an adventure, which usually involves things to make a surprise for her mom.
“Yeah, well,” she shrugs, shouldering her bag, “my mom's girlfriend.”
It’s been two years since they got together. And even before that she’d had been around quite a lot – her mom’s team has always included her in little outings and team events but even from the beginning Tammy had been the one to be there in the quieter, more normal moments.
Movie nights, pancake breakfasts, homework help.
And now she’s part of her life, in a way she hadn’t really imagined anyone apart from her mom and dad would be, rolling her eyes in commiseration at her mom’s embarrassing cheering at soccer games, complaining that her mom keeps the house too cold, sympathising when drama happens at school that she can’t avoid and offering mercifully practical advice if asked for.
But she’s never forced her way into anything. She’s just there, in the best way possible.
So no, she’s never really thought about it. But she doesn’t know how else to describe Tammy’s place in her life.
Neither of them say a word until they’re a few streets away from the school.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” Naomi asks eventually, voice small but with just a hint of challenge, like she’s getting ready to defend herself if needed.
For a moment, Tammy wonders how she got here.
Of course, the answer is that she hadn’t hesitated when Hannah had hung up the phone and run agitated hands through her hair, knowing she couldn’t leave the office right now and Ryan was out of town and…
She’d been there immediately, breaking their usual rule of no pda at work to set the hands pressing crescent moons into palms gently but firmly on the table and getting close enough that Hannah had no choice but to focus on her words as she told her that she would get Naomi and bring her back here, while Hannah would take a breath then go and finish her interrogation.
Crises she can manage, her girlfriend when she’s stressed because of her family – about the only thing that gets her worked up like that – she can help. This is out of her depth though.
She’s not Naomi’s parent, is she? She’s just facilitating so Hannah can do the parent thing.
Right?
“You can tell me if you want to…” she says eventually, keeping her voice as even as possible, “but your mom is going to want to hear an explanation. Suspension isn’t something she’s going to take lightly. Or your dad.”
“Dad wouldn’t understand,” Naomi mutters.
Tammy glances across to see her sullenly set face, and sighs internally. There had always been something off about the call, she knows this kid, there’s no way she’d just turn around a punch someone without an explanation.
“I’ll listen if you need me too-“ it’s something she’d promised herself when she and Hannah had started, she would never force anything but she would always be there for Naomi if she needed her- “but I think this is a ‘parent’ thing.”
There’s a small pause then, “You’re my parent too.”
The words, quiet but determined, take her by surprise and she glances back across at Naomi, this time finding her staring down at her lap.
Wordlessly, Tammy signals, pulls into the side of the street and turns off the engine completely.
Removing her seatbelt, she angles herself towards Naomi and simply watches her for a moment, using all of her profiling abilities to surmise that the teenager had meant it, she just isn’t sure how Tammy is going to react.
That sets of an emotion she can’t quite identify rising steadily in her chest.
Placing her hand over Naomi’s, stopping their twisting into each other, she locks down just enough of her rising emotion to allow herself to speak.
“I’m glad you feel that way, sweetie.”
Naomi meets her eye, a small smile gracing her face and Tammy returns it, squeezing her hands once before settling back in her seat and motioning for her to continue.
There’s a long minute of silence before Naomi finally speaks, once again not meeting her eye, “This boy… he said some things. About you and mom.”
Tammy grits her teeth and takes a deep breath, understanding washing immediately over her.
“It made me angry-” she flexes her hand and the investigator in Tammy observes that it can’t have been that hard of a punch, not if there’s barely any discolouration to the offending fist, but the responsible adult (parent?) in her still makes a mental note to get the ice pack when they get back to the squad room- “I didn’t even think about it, I just swung.”
Forcing herself to take another breath, she thinks everything through instead of answering impulsively.
If Naomi sees her as a parent, she needs to answer as a parent. Mature and reasonable.
She can’t just say, ‘I would’ve done the same in your place!’ (as true as that is, especially at that age.)
“I understand,” she says instead, “I would never judge you for throwing a punch, I got into enough fights myself at school. And after, actually,” she grins wickedly and is rewarded by a tiny chuckle before sobering again, “but what I will say – and I know your mom will agree with me – is that we don’t want you to get in trouble defending us.”
Sighing – at the situation, that Naomi is being exposed to it, that it’s something she and Hannah have to deal with, that some people have to deal with worse – she runs a hand through her hair.
She’s no stranger to anger at the world, seen it in enough people who have taken it too far and she’s felt it enough herself, but she’d long ago forced herself to channel it into making even the tiniest bit of difference where she can, not losing hope in the knowledge of how much it would mean to her if the roles were reversed.
“There’s enough violence born from ignorance, we don’t need to add more.”
Naomi looks up at her. She nods but she’s biting her lip.
Quietly, she admits, “It just makes me so angry.”
“I know, me too, patata,” she smiles sadly, holding her thumb and index finger a small distance apart, “and a bit sad,” tilting her head, she squeezes Naomi’s shoulder affectionately, “but you know what? Jokes on them, because I get to come home to your mom and you every night, and I couldn’t be happier.”
She waits until Naomi returns her smile before turning to put her seatbelt back on and restart the engine.
“Now, come on, the sooner we tell your mom what happened, the sooner you can use all your charm to get Pride to agree to sign off a paintballing trip tomorrow as ‘team building’-” she winks- “may as well use your day off, right?”
“I have cooked pasta before.”
Tammy folds her arms, hiding a smirk, “Yes, but have you cooked pasta correctly before?”
Naomi shoots her an unsure look, then turns wide-eyed to her mom, who’s perched on the nearby counter and barely hiding her laughter behind a large blue mug.
She narrows her eyes at her girlfriend to mask her own amusement.
“Okay so you have to make sure it’s al dente before you start everything else in. You’ll know because it’ll be paler and soft and a little floppy.”
Naomi peers seriously into the saucepan, “It’s not quite there yet, right?”
“Right,” Tammy confirms, delighted, “So while we’re waiting for that, we can talk herbs and spices. Basil, oregano and bay leaves are your friends. None of this fancy saffron business,” she scrunches her nose at Hannah, who splutters indignantly into her tea.
Winking at Naomi to show she’s joking less she be restricted from ever eating her girlfriend’s exquisite Tahchin again, she pulls out her spice box with a flourish, “My ma taught me all this when I was about your age. Maybe a little younger.”
Naomi sifts through the box, noting some of the names and sniffing a few in interest.
“Why do you call your mom that? Why not call her ‘mom’?” she asks curiously and Tammy blinks.
“I just always have, sweetie. ‘Mom’ never really seemed to sound right to me,” she shrugs, giving the pasta a quick stir, “Ma fit, you know?”
It’s short and sharp, full of the Italian drama she shares with her mother.
Easier to use in exasperation, but easy to laden with fondness too. Especially in more recent years.
“Ma. Ma,” she tests the word quietly a few times then suddenly turns her full attention to Tammy and asks, “can I call you, Ma?”
The breath catches in her throat and she exchanges a look with Hannah, who seems to be just as surprised by the turn the conversation has taken.
Although perhaps they shouldn’t be, it’s not like they haven’t talked about Tammy’s place in the family before – they both agree Tammy’s role in Naomi’s life is completely dependent on how Naomi wants it to be.
But then there’s the fact that she’s passing on Gregorio recipes, heavily guarded secrets that are taught with great care to very few. Naomi makes that list, that means a lot to Tammy and… apparently to Naomi too.
Setting down her spatula, she quietly asks, “Do you want to?”
Naomi bites her lips and nods, eyes darting from her face to the floor and back again as she explains simply, “It just fits.”
A moment of understanding passes between them. Tammy knows her well enough to know she means it and that she’s probably been thinking about this for a while.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she smiles, “Then yes, patata, of course you can.”
She opens her arms to invite Naomi in for a hug, thankful that she’s still just about small enough to fit under her chin.
There’s a sniffle from behind them and they both simultaneously reach out to tug Hannah into the embrace, Naomi sandwiched between them in the middle of their kitchen.
“You know,” she whispers into Naomi’s hair, “I never thought I was going to have any children. But on this one and only occasion-” Hannah snorts lightly and she gives a brief grin before softening her voice again- “I’m happy to be proven wrong.”
“I’m glad you’re part of our family, Ma,” Naomi mumbles into the huddle, “we’re lucky to have you.”
Exchanging another look with Hannah, who has tears running down her cheeks despite the smile on her face, Tammy leans forward and places a kiss, first on Hannah’s cheek, then to the top of Naomi’s head.
“Nah, I’m the lucky one.”
“Hey, Ma!”
Tammy recognises the voice before she processes the words, spinning around just in time to scoop a high-velocity Naomi up in her arms.
Then the words catch up to her and she gives Naomi an extra squeeze as a warm feeling sparks in her chest.
Maybe at some point, that word won’t cause a reaction in her. But she hopes that time never comes.
“Patata! How was your trip?”
Two weeks she’s been away with Ryan and Tammy has missed her.
“Amazing!” Naomi pulls back with a grin, catching sight of Hannah in the courtyard, “Mom!” immediately, she scampers off, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll show you the pictures!”
Tammy leans back against the counter, so absorbed in watching their reunion that she only peripherally notices Sebastian sidling up to her.
“Did she just call you ‘Ma?’” he asks, a hint of surprise evident in their voice.
“Uh huh,” she confirms, not taking her eyes off Naomi.
There’s a joyful animation to the way she talks, one that Tammy is delighted she hasn’t lost as she creeps further and further into her teenage years and she’s not sure which she finds more heartbreaking (in the best way possible), that, or the way Hannah’s eyes sparkle with pride every time.
Fuck, she’s such a sap.
She wouldn’t change it though.
Sebastian hands her a cup of coffee and she shifts her gaze long enough to send him a grateful smile.
“You know, I had a pregnancy scare once,” she says, not quite sure why she’s suddenly telling them something only two people on the entire planet know (the other one of them being very much in prison).
“You did?”
She can hear the pause in Sebastian’s voice; they’re not quite sure how to react and she doesn’t blame them.
Taking a sip of her drink, she sighs, “Well, I actually was pregnant. It didn’t last though-” she glances up to the ceiling, feeling like she’s somehow sullying her time spent with Naomi by remembering the almost horror she’d experienced when she’d finally realised she was pregnant- “it was a gut punch even though I didn’t think I wanted children.“
More recently, she’s come to realise that the horror had actually been the idea of having a child with him, knowing deep down in her gut that he was bad news for her even then.
And that the stress from that subconscious thought had most likely been what ultimately led to her losing the piccolina.
Somehow it makes it so much worse that he had helped her so gently through the whole ordeal.
Brushing aside those thoughts, she shrugs, “that and the fact I know how fucked up I was by my own parents… made me not really want to try again.”
“Well,” Sebastian bumps their shoulders together playfully, nodding out to where Naomi and Hannah are now sat at the courtyard table, hunched over Naomi’s phone, “it looks like you are a parent after all.”
They watch as Naomi shows a photo that makes Hannah throw her head back in a face-lighting laugh, then peers round as if to look for someone.
Her grin broadens when her gaze alights on Tammy and she eagerly beckons her over.
“Yeah-” she pushes off the counter with a smile that she knows is sappy as hell and yet doesn’t care- “looks like it.”
“It’s a good look on you, T,” he calls after her and she turns to throw him an affectionate wink.
“Thanks, baby.”
“Hey, Ma?”
“Yes, sweetie?” Tammy looks up from her book with a smile even through her immediate concern at the way Naomi is stood, twisting her hands together anxiously.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
Okay, so it’s going to be one of those conversations.
“You can ask, but I can choose whether or not to answer,” she replies reasonably, patting the chair next to her and patiently waiting for Naomi to sit.
There’s a long pause before she finally speaks quietly, “How did you know you were gay?”
Tammy breathes an internal sign of relief, this is a conversation she’s safe with.
She avoids her usual joking answer of finding some relevant celebrity hot, feeling like there’s something more to this than general curiosity.
Instead, she wraps her hands around her coffee, “I didn’t for quite a while. Well, maybe I did somewhere in the back of my mind, but I pushed it so far down that I convinced myself it wasn’t true.”
Carefully, she considers Naomi’s serious expression.
She’s aware Tammy was married before she realised she was gay but, although Naomi is perceptive enough to have most likely realised it was a less than perfect relationship, she’s kept the details carefully concealed over the years.
Taking a breath, she leans back in her chair, “I was married to a man for a few years, a man who took advantage of me in a vulnerable state and manipulated me until I didn’t even recognise myself anymore. It took me a long time to work out who I was after that and it was somewhere in that time, I realised. Women.”
She adds in a little jazz hand that has the desired result of breaking the heaviness and making Naomi chuckle.
Taking a sip of her coffee, she gives herself a moment to gather her thoughts, then she shrugs simply, “So I suppose the actual answer is… I knew I was gay when I was finally myself again.”
Naomi is silent for a while, clearly thinking something through and Tammy gives her the time she needs, watching her bite her lip as she keeps her gaze trained on the table.
“Do you think it’s ever too early to know your sexuality?” she asks eventually.
Tammy considers that for a moment before shaking her head, “No. Sometimes it’s a gut feeling that you somehow just know isn’t going away.”
“What about…” she twists her fingers anxiously, her voice dipping down to a whisper, “if you’re sure you’re never going to feel something?”
Getting a feeling of where this may be going, she sets down her coffee and asks evenly, “Have you ever talked to your Uncle Sebby about his sexuality? Or Uncle P?”
Naomi tilts her head curiously, “Uncle Sebby is pansexual, aren’t they?”
“Well, yes but they’re also grey-asexual which is-“
“When someone rarely or only occasionally experiences sexual attraction,” she reels off, only furthering Tammy’s suspicions.
“Exactly. And your Uncle Patton is aromantic. They’ll both happily talk about it, if you want to know more. Their experiences are as real and valid as anyone’s. Mine, or your mom’s…”
Slowly, she reaches her hands out to lay over Naomi’s, waiting until she meets her eye before smiling reassuringly.
“Or yours.”
Tammy waits until Hannah has fallen completely into sleep, the tear tracks still visible on her cheeks, before she leaves her wrapped in a blanket with a feather-light kiss to the forehead and slips down the corridor.
Naomi’s door is slightly ajar and she knocks lightly before peeking in to find her sat in her bed, knees hugged up to her chest.
“Hey, patata, can I come in?”
She sniffles slightly but nods and Tammy moves as unobtrusively as she can through the room to perch on the edge of her bed.
For a moment, she simply sits, waiting to see if Naomi will say anything but she doesn’t, just stares down at the fingers she’s twisting together.
Slowly, she reaches out, giving her every chance to refuse her touch until Tammy’s hands are layered on top of hers, stopping their movement.
“Our job, your mom’s and mine, it’s dangerous,” she begins seriously, “just because we’re careful – and your mom is so careful to come home to you, sweetie – doesn’t mean there isn’t risk. I wish I could tell you that’s not the truth, but I’m not going to lie to you.”
Naomi’s gaze lifts to meet hers and, seeing eyes filled with tears, Tammy begins to rub her thumb soothingly back and forth over her knuckles.
“It’s something we struggle with too, you’re not alone in it… Especially when you have first-hand experience of how dangerous it can be,” she pauses, carefully studying Naomi’s reaction, “how much do you remember from before?”
“Zelko? Not much,” she shrugs, “most of the memories are repressed, they come back to me in flashes sometimes, in dreams. Or…” she takes in a sharp breath before quietly admitting, “when I hear crackles of electricity. Talking to Doctor Abigail has helped and she said I should talk to mom too but… I don’t want her to feel guilty.”
Her voice finishes at a whisper and a single tear slips down her face. Tammy tenderly reaches up to brush it away, her fingers lingeringly comfortingly on her cheek, encouraging her to look up.
“Sweetie, blowing up at her like that isn’t going to make her not feel guilty,” she points out gently, “I’m not saying you shouldn’t express your feelings and I’m definitely not saying you’re responsible for how your emotions make someone else feel. Just that you are responsible for how your actions impact other people.”
The shouting match that she’d just witnessed hadn’t been Naomi’s best moment, clearly full of a lot of pent-up emotions.
Naomi nods slowly, “I’ll talk to mom.”
“About it all?” she prompts, “not just what happened tonight. About everything leading up to it too? Because I know this isn’t just a thing from today, patata.”
Tammy understands, she really does. She’d been terrified as well when Hannah had been hit, even if it had only been a graze sorted by a couple of stitches, but all she’d needed was to hold her girlfriend in her arms for a few minutes to remind herself that they’re both still here.
She has her coping strategies but she’s not sure Naomi does, not after all of this being triggered by the sight of the bandage.
Naomi seems to agree with her, because she takes a deliberate breath and nods slowly, “everything.”
With a proud smile, Tammy squeezes her shoulder, “I know it’s not going to be an easy conversation, sweetie, but I’ll be there if you want me to be.”
“Yes, please,” she shuffles up the bed to pull her into a tight hug, mumbling into her shoulder, “thanks, Ma, I love you.”
Tammy pats her back, “I love you too.”
They stay like that until Naomi pulls away, Tammy refusing to make the first move to separate them.
“Now, we have a few options, your mom has fallen asleep so either we go and make a start on the washing up, or we join her. It’s never-”
“Never too late in the day for a nap,” Naomi finishes with a weak laugh.
It’s a life lesson they’ve both been trying to instil in Hannah for a few years now, with only middling success.
She winks, “Exactly.”
“Hey, patata? While your mom isn’t here,” Tammy begins as if she hasn’t engineered a ma-daughter errand run specifically, “I wanted to ask... how would you feel about me-” she gulps nervously- “proposing to her?”
She’s never been a traditional person who cares about a father’s approval to get married (fuck knows her own father would never have approved, she hopes he’s rolling in his grave at the idea) but it’s important to her that Naomi is okay with it.
Not that much will be changing really, they’ve been a family for years.
Naomi narrows her eyes but Tammy sees the playful twinkle in them that she gets from her mom.
“Do I get to go ring shopping with you?” she asks with faux-seriousness and Tammy snorts.
“I think I need you to come ring shopping with me.”
It’s not exactly in her comfort zone. And if there’s one thing that Naomi is amazing at picking, it’s jewellery.
“Do I get to pick my own dress?”
Tammy rolls her eyes – she thinks it’s much too early to be thinking of things like that – but still answers genuinely, “You know we would never make you wear something you don’t want to, sweetie.”
“Are you going to be even more nauseating than you usually are?” Naomi teases and she scoffs.
“At our wedding? Absolutely,” she grins as Naomi groans dramatically then grimaces, “as long as she says yes.”
“Of course she’s going to say yes-” now it’s Naomi’s turn to roll her eyes then she grins, pushing her playfully on the shoulder- “get on with it and become my ma officially already.”
Biting her lip, Tammy asks carefully, “You know it still wouldn’t legally make you my child, right?”
Naomi just looks at her and lifts an eyebrow in a way that she could have sworn she got from her, “Well, maybe we should fix that.”
She feels a familiar spark of warmth in her chest as she all but whispers, her voice soft and low with emotion, “You want me to adopt you?”
Slowly, Naomi nods, suddenly nervous, “I know it’s just a bit of paper and I’ll be a legal adult in a few months anyway but… it would mean a lot to me.”
Tammy leans over to drop a kiss on her forehead, unable and unwilling to stop the smile spreading across her face, “Same here, sweetie.”
“Come on, kiss already, or I’m gonna have graduated college before you get out of here!”
A wave of chuckles float across the friends and family gathered around them.
Hannah turns to her daughter with a fond smile on her face and a hand on her hip, “Uh, when did you get so sassy?”
She throws Tammy an accusatory look that has her lifting one hand up in surrender, the other staying firmly wrapped around her wife’s (her wife’s) waist, “Don’t look at me, darlin’, she was like that before I turned up!”
“I’d say it was fifty-fifty,” Naomi quips and Tammy scrunches her nose at her.
“See, nānāzam,” Hannah whispers, looping her arms around her next and leaning close enough to rest their foreheads together, “you’re half to blame.”
The smile hasn’t left Tammy’s face all day and she takes the moment to simply breathe in being close to her wife, like the rest of their friends and family aren’t stood around them, her eyes slipping closed.
“Half to blame for our daughter being able to stand up for herself? I’ll take it.”
She tilts her head until their lips meet, pulling Hannah in closer by her hips.
After a few seconds, she hears a dramatic gag behind her.
“Okay, I take it back,” Naomi jokes.
Tammy smirks internally and shakes herself just enough out of her loved-up haze to deepen the kiss, running her fingers along Hannah’s jaw and feeling the huff of a laugh on her lips as they work together to mess with Naomi just a little.
“Ma.”
She does finally break the kiss at that, but she still takes the time to lovingly graze their noses together before turning innocently to their daughter, “Yes, sweetie?”
Naomi is pouting but there’s still a delighted twinkle to her eye, “Will you just go on your honeymoon already, please!?”
She’s the one who’s put probably the most effort into wedding planning, not that it’s been a big affair but Tammy, for all that she has strong opinions, hadn’t had many over the specifics and Hannah gets uncharacteristically frazzled over big life events.
So, Naomi had stepped up and she’d delivered, not that Tammy had ever thought it would be anything other than perfect (they could have got married in the squad room and had a beer at the TruTone for the reception and she would have been perfectly content if it meant she got to marry Hannah).
Grinning proudly, she pulls Naomi closer and stretches up to drop a kiss on her head, despite her taking after her mom and being taller than Tammy by a good few inches.
She pulls her into the embrace, wrapping her arms securely around two of the most important people in her life as a happy sigh slips involuntarily out of her, “La patata del mio cuore.”
Hannah snorts softly in her ear, knowing the exact translation of what she’d said, but she just smiles.
This isn’t a day she’s going to forget. Not this moment or any of the many she’s spent with these two, right from the beginning.
A gentle camera shutter sound pulls Tammy out of her memories and she waits for a few seconds for Sebastian to get the shot before waving an arm wildly behind her until it makes contact with a gentle thump.
Ignoring the soft ‘oof’ of protest, she tugs them into the embrace. Then she pops her head out of the mass of hair, silky dress material and sweet perfumes long enough to catch Pride’s eye and shoot him a meaningful look.
His grin grows and he wraps an affectionate arm around Christopher’s shoulder as he beckons the rest of the team along to join the huddle.
The three of them end up at the centre of it all. Tammy feels the gentle weight of everyone around her and lets her eyes fall closed as she presses closer still to Naomi and Hannah, the core of her family.
“Mint’s a good choice,” Tammy compliments, feeling the movement of the table as Naomi happily swings her legs and realising she’s made the right decision despite the anxiety this outing has caused her.
“Hmm, it’s my favourite-” grinning, she takes a few contented licks- “do you always get coffee?”
“Pretty much,” she shrugs, “I’ll take coffee in any form.”
“Mom says you need it to function.”
Tammy snorts, “Does she now? Well, if it comes up again, you can tell your mom that tea tastes like flavoured water and watch her face.”
She winks to show she’s teasing and Naomi giggles.
Catching a drip of ice cream, she eyes the teenager sitting opposite her and keeps her voice relaxed as she asks, “So, do ya know why it’s just me and you here today?”
“Because you and Mom are dating now, like Dad and Veronica,” she parrots back, her voice strangely neutral, “and you want to tell me that you’re not trying to be my mom, you’re not trying to push in where you’re not wanted and you don’t expect me to see you as ‘mom.’”
Tammy grimaces internally, sympathetic to the life of a child with divorced parents.
“It sounds like Veronica has maybe had this conversation with you already?”
“She did,” Naomi shrugs, “it didn’t go quite as well though.”
“Why?” she questions carefully, raising an eyebrow at Naomi’s mischievous grin.
“She didn’t buy me ice cream.”
Tammy bursts into laughter at that but she still feels like there’s something else.
“Is that the only reason?” she prompts gently and Naomi sighs, fiddling with the napkin wrapped around her cone.
“Sometimes when my parents are around other people, they act more like ‘Hannah’ and ‘Ryan’ than my mom and dad,” she admits quietly, “I know it’s because different people need different things and they have different ‘hats’ to wear. But there are moments that Dad doesn’t quite feel like my dad when Veronic is around. It’s not bad it’s just… strange. Like maybe I’m losing those moments with him.”
Her voice drops lower the longer she talks, her gaze fixed firmly on the table and Tammy doesn’t know quite what to say.
She’d been Naomi’s age when her own dad had left, there one day and gone the next without a word to her. She doesn’t think her parents had ever actually got a divorce, her mom was far too old-school Catholic for that, but she hadn’t heard from him again until her mom had called her one day at college and told her he’d died.
At the time, she’d been strangely numb to it, not able to process everything from the mostly less than fond memories she held of him.
And, to the best of her knowledge, her mom hasn’t been in a relationship since.
So, she’s never had the ‘meeting the parents’ new partner’, especially not as a child.
Before she can formulate a response, Naomi looks suddenly up at her, head tilted slightly and a small smile on her face.
“Mom never does that when you’re there though.”
An unexpected wave of emotion hits Tammy and she blinks, feeling slightly absurd as she’s forced to continue licking her ice cream to stop it from dripping down her hand.
“The last thing I want is to come between you two,” she promises, “so, what I really want to ask is if you’ll tell me if I’m doing something that’s upsetting you, or if everything is changing too quickly?”
Naomi considers that for a moment then nods, the movement somehow getting a little dollop of ice cream right on the tip of her nose.
She pauses in shock for a beat then her face scrunches up in a laugh and Tammy chuckles as she passes her a napkin to wipe it off, wryly thinking that if Sebastian (who is quickly becoming one of Naomi’s favourite people) was here, he wouldn’t hesitate to give himself a matching blob.
Once all traces of the ice cream are gone, the smile falls unexpectedly from her face and Tammy feels herself tensing in concern, trying to guess what the young teenager is thinking.
With what she hopes is a reassuring expression, she waits patiently until Naomi’s gaze stops flicking between her and the table and she asks quietly, “Is everything going to change?”
“Things do change, sweetie,” she replies, her tone sincere as she lays a careful hand on her arm and she smiles gently, “but I’m hoping it’s going to be for the better.”