Upon checking with the agents I learned the cooks had only just finished bringing everything over to begin organizing for tomorrow. Once again I went out to check the heaters, wind generators and battery charges which were still pretty low. Okay, four generators and only half heat for the walks and driveway. We would need plenty of juice for the cooks tomorrow.
We opted for simple for the evening matching Cathy’s chanting. Piling into the limo again we drove to a local pizza joint one chase car in tow. There the limo caused a bit of a stir for a minute before no one recognized us and the commotion died a hurried death.

After we ordered several pizzas and pitchers of soft drinks plus one milk, which they didn’t have so we settled for a small coke for Cathy (and one refill) we managed to secure a table finally able to sit down to begin unwinding from the day. Cathy was still bouncing, watching everything that was going on and talking to anyone and everyone who walked past. I made eye contact every now and again with other mothers who had children here and we shared that common expression which indicated we were both happy to have the child with us as well as distressed that we had so little influence as to calm our children due to the excitement of going out like an adult to eat with her parents. I sighed and turned back to Cathy, who calmed down immediately once the food reached the table and was directly at hand.

Our Pizza adventure turned out fairly well and again I was impressed with Cathy’s table manners. It might just be me but I think her understanding of a conversation was easily escalating into the nine year old bracket, reminding me to be more careful of what I said when around her. Many things which would go right over a three year olds head were completely understood by her. Well, at least partially understood.

“Mommy, will you and Daddy go to the hospital and buy me a baby sister for Christmas?”

James choked on his root beer and looked first at Cathy then at me as though he was worried I might have thought he put her up to it.

“We can talk about that at home, baby. Daddy and I aren’t quite ready to bring home a sister for you. Maybe after you’re in school, we’ll see.”

James choked again. Cathy sat back momentarily content, sipping at her coke as she digested the answer before accepting it and moving on with the conversation which she now directed toward ‘doggies’ and ‘horsies’. If her ability to guide a conversation was any indication, my hands were going to be full once she discovered boys. I was just beginning to worry about that when I realized exactly what it was I was worrying about. Next, I began worrying about my ability to survive her growing up. I didn’t know if I was up to protecting ‘my’ daughter from boys. In fact I wasn’t at all certain I was up to being a full time woman and Mom. There were certain key bits missing from both my past and present makeup which I somehow thought would likely be necessary for such an endeavor.

“ ... won’t you Mommy?”

What did I miss?

“I’m sorry, Cathy. I was thinking about something and didn’t hear you.”

“I was telling Daddy that you were going to be my Mommy forever and ever and help me grow up to be just like you, won’t you Mommy?”

Wow, the tough one.

“It’s a little more complicated than that, baby, everyone’s different. Daddy and I have been talking about it but if it happens it will take a little while.”

She again paused to digest my sentence, “Oh ... Next week?”

“Not that soon, maybe after you are in school for a little while. We’ll see.”

“When do I get to go to school?”

Both Adam and I choked at that one.

He responded, “It will be a while yet. You’ve got to grow a little more first. We’ll let you know when you can go to school.”

“Is school far away?”

That one came at us with a little fear hidden behind it. I was wondering why she would be fearing school when James answered.

“That would depend upon which school you go to, Cathy.”

Meanwhile as a result of my little sentence I discovered I had almost committed myself to this family, I could just picture the changes in the betting pool, which never dissolved but just went underground after my note on the bulletin board. My bet originally would have been on never but now I wasn’t certain that bet would have even been in the running at all.

“Mommy, when you go to get my sister from the hospital then you’ll be my Mommy forever and ever?”

My face was, by now, quite red and I was wondering how to move Cathy away from these topics.

James again made a valiant effort to come to my rescue by attempting to move Cathy again to the subject of dogs. I busied myself with a napkin at Cathy’s face followed with, “Finish your pizza, baby.”

“I’m full, Mommy.”

“All right, then drink the last of your coke and we’ll be going home soon. Small sips don’t make a mess.”

She sipped at the quarter glass of coke for a short time, lowering it to about an eighth before announcing she was full again and telling the world she needed to go wee-wee. Again my face was red. I helped her down and led her to the ladies room where I helped prevent her from falling in while she did her thing then allowed her to wipe carefully. We pulled her clothing back into place, went to wash then trooped, hand in hand, back out to the table where the clean up and “doggie” carton procedures had nearly been completed. Cathy’s entourage then worked its way back outside while the table where we had been sitting was repopulated by the next group of pizza eaters even before we had made it out the doors. There were no mothers in that group or, at least, there were no small children.

Before the limo had even exited the parking lot, Cathy was asleep on my lap. She stirred a little at the house when I gave her to the Nanny to prepare her for bed.

“I’ll be up in about fifteen to check on her.”

As the Nanny carried Cathy upstairs James came over to me, “I had nothing to do with all that this evening, Lynn. I was as surprised as you were.”

“Well, I had a bit of a warning when Cathy visited Santa Claus ...” which brought a surprised look from James, “She asked him for a baby sister if you and I would go to the hospital and purchase one for her.”

He smiled, chuckling, “Sometimes it’s difficult to realize she is only three. So much of the time she seems much older.”

“Yes. Three going on thirty and back again. I’m worried about school when she finally discovers boys.”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

“Me neither.”
“You know ... You really make a good mother.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“I mean it, Lynn. Look at Cathy. Where does she go when she needs help?
Who is it she wants to emulate? In the short time she has been with you she has come out of her shell and started to have fun. When she has something for ‘show and tell’ you are the first person she runs to.”

“I’m certain it’s just the novelty of having someone nearby whom she perceives as her mother now. Who did she go to before? You?”

“No. She didn’t really interact much. She would draw and paint and play but there was no one she would rush to as her sanctuary and source of comfort. Of course she would go to myself or the Nanny but not like she does to you. I think we will all have an eye-opener the end of the week when she and I return home. Will you be ready for that?”
“I ... haven’t really given it much thought. Do you think she will be a problem?”

“I think she found her Mommy and she won’t willingly let go of you.”

“She must. I’m not her mother.”

“You’re doing more than a passable imitation. The mothering instinct seems to be strong in you.”

“But I can’t ... I’m not ...”

“A female? Let’s see ... If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck ...”

“James. You know I’m not female. I can’t be a mother, even if I wanted to be one. I don’t have the plumbing for it.”

“Maybe not. But there are women out there who cannot bear children. That doesn’t seem to stop them from adopting and having their families.”

“But ... I ... You know I’m not the same as them. I wasn’t born female. Hell, I’m not female even now.”

“That doesn’t seem to be stopping you from being a good mother to Cathy.”

“James, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“Lynn. Stop arguing for a minute and think about this from another point of view. If you were born female, and I’m not saying you were, and you couldn’t have children; then along come myself and Cathy and she latches on to you as her long lost mother and you respond in kind ... what do you think would be different than things are right now?”

“I’d have proper plumbing for one thing.”

“Semantics. That can be arranged surgically. It’s done frequently, even now. Stop arguing and just think about it for a minute.”

Think about it? What if I had grown up as a girl? What if I couldn’t have children but actually was female? What would be different? I wouldn’t have been in SEA for one thing. I wouldn’t have had all that training and met the friends I had met nor started this business. Would I? Whoa ... Even when I’m “female” I still like running this business and am still looking forward to expanding into other cities and into Europe. I like what I’m doing and I like Cathy. Her drawings are beginning to appear at the refrigerator door with more regularity and little gold stars are appearing on them. That’s something about which she is very proud ... The star fairy has been coming to put stars on her drawings so she has been trying to make them better so she will continue to receive more stars.

If I ask her to do something she tries to do it right away but she will argue a little with James or the Nanny. To her, I am “Mommy”. That’s an awesome responsibility. Guiding a young soul, that is more difficult and important than my business. I need to have a talk with Ralph and Nicci. Being a woman feels right to me somehow, but being a mother? Am I ready for that? Could I do justice to the role? Could I raise a young girl to be a woman and a lady? Could I be a grandmother? I’m not ready for this ... One step at a time. I need to find a doctor to discuss this and learn if it is something which could even occur. There are some out there who are doing it but what effect would it have on Cathy if or when she learned her “mother” wasn’t a woman?

She is so special ... I don’t want to hurt her. Geez, I wish I had been born female. Then I really could be Cathy’s mother.

“Speaking of Cathy, I need to go up and check on her, James. I need to tuck her in.”

He smiled knowingly which was infuriating in a nice way. I left him sitting there as I went upstairs to check on my daughter. Having successfully extracted myself from further conversation, I went to Cathy’s room and found her lightly asleep. She came awake the instant I kissed her forehead,

“I love you Mommy. I said my prayers with Nana.”

“I love you too, baby. Hush now, go back to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning. Nighty-bye.”
She snuggled down into the covers and I adjusted them a little while smiling at her. Her eyes closed and opened and closed several times before she was out again. That gave me the opportunity to quietly make my way out the door shutting it down to a crack before turning on the lights for the landing again. Tonight was a bit better for her as she slept through the night without any nightmares. I figured if there were going to be any, pizza would have precipitated them but it didn’t happen.

The next morning I was up early, going down to prepare breakfast for everyone only to find my kitchen occupied and breakfast already in motion. I had forgotten the cooks would be here for the rest of the week. I could have slept for another hour. I went back up and looked longingly at the bed but I knew if I went back to bed now, then I’d be wasted all day. Instead I took a shower and got ready for the day.

Returning downstairs still put me far ahead of most of the gang and I had nothing to occupy my time. I thought about the battery banks, going out to check on them after peeking out at the snow. The banks were coming up, with the peripheral batteries at nearly ninety percent and the house at between 60 and 70 percent. Once again I clicked on the heat for the four generators and half heat ... no ... full heat to the drive, walks and this time included the sidewalks down by the street as well as for the back porch, which was actually more like a sun deck, setting the timer for three hours then grimaced at the estimated power usage which would deplete the peripheral storage batteries if no wind came up. I ran a ‘what if’ for the house and found it had enough energy for sixteen hours without charge at present use. Real life would be a bit longer since the kitchen would be shut down most of the day. I began praying for wind. At least if the batteries hit ten percent then the grid power would be connected and begin to charge everything. That meant I would have a $25 connect charge plus the bill for the power usage, at least I hoped it was still only $25. That once in a year reconnect charge would occur only because I hadn’t used any grid power for over a year.

Wandering back into the house from the garage, I was still wondering what to do with myself with the remaining twenty minutes or so I had available. My wandering found me next to my piano so I went back, shut the doors to hold down the sound, and then returned to play lightly for a while. Most of it was practice at scales and chords to limber my fingers getting them accustomed to reaching out for the keys. Eventually I played a few songs from musicals and my poor rendition of ‘Claire-de-Lune’. I don’t even want to think how badly I mangled the beginnings of the ‘Brandenburg’ before abandoning it and moving on to the ‘Moonlight’ sonata. Somewhere during all this I realized I was hungry. Opening the doors I found most of the occupants of my house in the dining room eating their way through my meager food stocks, so I wandered out to the kitchen to learn if there was any food remaining for their hungry hostess.

“Ms. Stevens, not to worry. Go have a seat and we’ll bring in some breakfast for you. How does a few eggs, toast, coffee, cottage cheese and a peach half sound? Most anything else you might want is available as well.”

“A small slice of ham?”

“You’ve got it. Give us a few minutes and it’ll be right out.”

I smiled my appreciation then went back to the dining room to join the conversation until my food arrived. After that my mouth was too busy chewing to spend time talking.
Breakfast was wonderful; mostly, I suppose, because I wasn’t the one who needed to prepare it. I must have been hungry because I inhaled the food, even the lettuce leaf on which the cottage cheese and peach half had been seated. I helped clear the table and while in the kitchen asked if Nora and Cathy had been down for their breakfast. That required a little explanation since apparently they had not been down yet. I warned the two staff members that, “Cathy might refer to me as ‘Mommy’ and the artwork on the refrigerator was hers. Nora is her Nanny.”

Explanation accepted they made certain that there would be some food quickly ready for each of them and they would also make up a small bowl of cream of wheat for Cathy along with the juice, milk and small quantities of egg, toast and ham. I also warned them that she was a “precocious three-year-old going on nine who will likely talk your legs off given the opportunity. Whatever you do, don’t let her talk you into reading to her or you will be stuck for the day.”

They were still chuckling as I made my way out, going upstairs to freshen up, grab my purse, and then make my way back down again to join everyone else who was going to the convention center. Nora and Cathy took this moment to appear so James and I got to kiss Cathy good-bye before we went out to brave the snow. I noted the drive and walks were mostly thawed and hoped for enough wind to replenish the two battery banks. So long as the wind didn’t stop for more than thirty minutes the generators would continue to charge the batteries as long as wind was available or until the batteries were full. The thirty minute kick off wasn’t a feature I liked but I didn’t know how to change it so that any wind would always cause a charge. If the generators got cold enough then they would freeze and wouldn’t turn unless they were defrosted again. During the winter I automatically turned on the heaters for the generators. If I did it accidentally on a summer day the temperature sensors would kick the heat off pretty quickly. During the winter if they became so warm that the sensors kicked the heat off — once they cooled the heat would come on again so long as the breakers were still turned on.

I might not have much to worry about as the wind seemed to be quite active this morning and each generator was capable of producing 10KVA, whatever that was, at twenty miles per hour. I’ve been told that the four generators could charge both battery banks completely from dead to full charge in less than five hours at full output. I had yet to see that happen. The best I’d ever seen was about a fifteen hour charge from around 25% to full charge. Even that was impressive since the driveway, walks and house heaters were all running at the time. Besides, we never had a continuous wind. It was always gusts of ten to twenty and which lasted only a minute or two then would be gone for a bit only to return again over and over.

The batteries were almost always at or above the mid yellow to low green and frequently into the mid or high green. Green was the upper quarter of the charge indicator, yellow the middle half and red the lower quarter with black at the bottom 5%. By the time either of my batteries had gone into the black the whole system would have switched to the grid (commercial power) and would remain there until the batteries were fully replenished or until I manually switched the system back to generators and batteries only. If I didn’t tap the grid for power at least once a year then I had that reconnect charge which really wasn’t a reconnect charge so much as a billing set up charge for the next year.

After we pulled into the convention center lot and exited to make our way inside, the driver took the car off to park it somewhere accessible before he too, came into the building. We had our badges which allowed us access so we walked on into the building then onto the convention floor, making our way to the business displays and computers. The few guards who had watched everything to be certain it didn’t get up and run off during the night glanced at the badges worn by my agents and myself and quietly faded back away from our area, presumably figuring that if someone wanted to take something from one of the display booths near us they would be a great deal more than foolish to attempt it. We were a little early, so James took a look at everything before his two employees showed up fifteen minutes later. A bit of clean up occurred to make the area more attractive, then the plan of attack for the day was discussed. That had me wondering once again why people who knew about computers couldn’t talk in English but had to use some sort of short hand Greek or Latin. It made me wonder if they were related to Doctors in some way.

Again I was given the opportunity to play at being a secretary with that funny typewriter. All the little printers were given more of that silvery paper with which to play. The big printer still had more than 3/4 of its box of paper remaining and there were three more boxes under the table just waiting for use should the first one ever run out. The ribbon was changed so everything it printed during the show today would remain nice and dark. The partially used ribbon was placed into the packaging from which the new ribbon was extracted. All the ‘little’ things to make the presentations more enticing were eventually completed and then we were simply waiting for the doors to open and the first visitors to begin to appear. I began to wonder how much the attendance would be affected by the snow.

It turns out I had wondered needlessly. When the doors opened only ten or twenty people walked onto the convention floor. When I looked up about an hour later the maddening throng was everywhere. Our area had perhaps six people looking at various aspects of the systems and software and both James and the two employees were busy. I wound up playing twenty questions with someone, answering their questions with my limited knowledge until James found the time to come to my rescue. I introduced him to the gentleman whose name tag said “Frank” and James took it from there. I went back to my typing.

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