Different Circles

Meghan shook her head. “I was really just kind of hoping to stay at home, relax, hang out in the hot tub, maybe have a few drinks, read some books from the library, watch some DVDs.” She sighed. “Now I got Aunt Virginia. What a rip.”

Chapter 27: Can the Beat Go On?

Glacier National Park, Montana

August 14, 1998

There was no need for an alarm clock or a wakeup call when one had a Caydee. She routinely slept through the night now, generally going down around 8:30 PM and staying down, but she was still an early riser. This morning was no exception. Jake woke up to the sound of her enthusiastic chants coming from her room in the two-room suite they were staying in at the Many Glacier Lodge on the east side of the sprawling, mountainous Glacier Park.

“Do!” Caydee shouted out loudly, pronouncing it “doe”, as in a deer, a female deer. “Do, do, do, do, doooooooo!”

It was not really a word, as she was still a few months away from even being able to say mama or dada, but one of the notes in the major musical scale, the first one, in fact, which represented C. Jake was in the habit of singing her the lyrics to Do-Re-Mi, from the Sound of Music, as that song, aside from being quite catchy and easy to learn, was the easiest way to memorize that particular scale and commit it to memory for all time. Caydee loved hearing him sing it (he always did it A capella and separate from the guitar sing sessions), but so far she had only picked up on the first note. And she had adapted that as her note of all notes, sound of all sounds, word of all words. She used “do” for all manner of communication now. She shouted “DO!” when she was upset. She asked “do?” when she was curious. She cooed “do” when she was happy. And she shouted out do, do, do, do, doooooooo!” when she was awake and ready to leave her crib in the morning.

“It sounds like Princess Caydee is awake,” grunted Laura, who was curled up on Jake’s left, her nude body snuggled into him.

“Yep,” Jake said, looking at the clock on the wall. It was 6:37 AM. Right on schedule. “I’ll get her.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” she said, giving him a little kiss on the cheek.

He turned a little to his right, where Celia’s nude body was snuggled into him from that side. Her face was resting on his chest and there was a little puddle of her drool there. She was still sleeping quite soundly. He touched her back and shook her gently until her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him.

“Caydee’s up,” he told her. “I need to get out of bed.”

“Oh ... okay,” she said softly, rolling away from him. She then noticed the drool. “Ewww. I slobbered on you. That’s gross. I’m so sorry, Jake.”

Jake laughed. “Think nothing of it,” he said, sitting up. “I’m pretty much covered in your bodily fluids anyway. What’s a little saliva on the pectoral?”

“I suppose,” Celia said, though she was still visibly embarrassed by the unintentional faux pas.

Jake pulled himself out from under the covers and then shimmied forward, so he could put his feet on the floor. He, like the ladies, was completely naked. He rather reeked of their combined sexual musk. It was not exactly an unpleasant smell to his nose, however. He picked up a pair of sweatpants that was sitting on the dresser and pulled them on. He then went into the bathroom and washed his hands, his face (he did not want to kiss his daughter with the mouth that had been doing what his mouth had been doing last night), the drool off of his chest, and brushed his teeth really quick. Caydee’s “do, do, do’s” continued from the second bedroom, becoming a little louder and more insistent. Experience had taught her parents that they had about five minutes before she would start getting seriously pissed off and screaming for them.

Shirtless, but with his face and breath no longer smelling of vaginal secretions, he walked into the main room of the suite and then the smaller second room where Caydee’s travel crib had been set up. She was standing up in it, holding onto the rail to support herself. She still could not stand unassisted, let alone take a step that way, but she was getting closer to that particular milestone. She saw him come into the room and her eyes locked onto him.

“Do!” she barked. “Do, Do!”

Jake understood Caydee-speak quite well by this point in the relationship. The translation: “My diaper is dirty, Dad, so get it changed! On the fuckin’ double, please!”

“I hear you, little girl,” he told her, holding out his arms and picking her up. Even if he had not been able to understand her vocal communication, there was a distinct olfactory subtitle to help him along. “Whew. You are not smelling like a rose this morning, Caydee-girl.”

“Do!” she agreed, judiciously not mentioning that he was not smelling so great himself.