Day Twenty

On the dog walk the next morning, Cathy peered into every car on the block. She scoped out every bush and tree, and eyed the branches and power lines for cameras. They circled the block several times and looked at their house from every suspicious angle. There was nobody loitering on the corner, no obvious devices in the trees, no lenses pointed at their front door. Nevertheless, when she snuck Star out of the house, it was out the back door. Star was dressed in a dress that only a middle aged woman would wear, and had on sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around her head. Cathy was dressed the same. Sisters in crime, they were. Cathy reached the car in a cold sweat. Star was fuming about how unnecessary all this skullduggery was, but Cathy ignored her, and jammed her into the back seat, where she was made to lie on the floor.

“Mom, this is ridiculous. I can’t lie down here. There’s a hump between the seats.”

Cathy looked. It was a formidable hump. “Well, lie face down, and try not to smoosh your belly up against it.” She threw a rug over Star’s form and started the car.

It was hard to tell if anyone was following, because it was rush hour. Traffic was hell, and it took her a few moments to get out of the alley behind the house. Cathy took a very roundabout way, and it took half an hour of twists and turns and reversals and dead ends before they got to the clinic, two miles away. Star complained the whole time. Every bump, every turn. “Ow. Damn it, Mom. Can’t you drive any smoother? My stomach!”

When Cathy was sure nobody was following them, she pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car. They had to go in the front door, Cathy having ascertained on yesterday’s dry run that there was no back door they could use. She was trembling as she escorted Star thru the door. All was quiet inside, and she began to feel rather foolish. Then a sudden thought hit her, and she went out into the parking lot and knelt down on the pavement to look underneath the car. She felt even more foolish when she didn’t find a GPS device attached anywhere.

They had to wait. Cathy made sure Star was facing away from the door, and kept her sunglasses and scarf on. Star complained of the heat. She complained of the inconvenience. She complained that she was so embarrassed. She complained that Cathy was so stupid.

Cathy ignored her, getting up every thirty seconds to peer out the door incase anyone was watching or approaching.

A man came in, looking suspicious. Cathy hissed to Star not to look around. The man sauntered up to the counter and signed in, then took a seat and became absorbed in the TV. Cathy was sure he was scrutinizing them.

There was more waiting, and Cathy got more nervous every minute. She was now sure the guy in the waiting room was there to keep an eye on them. Star kept glancing at her with scorn, but said nothing. Cathy would have gotten violent if she had.

Eventually the nurse called them from a side door, and they followed her into relative safety. Even so, Cathy stood by the door and watched to see if the suspicious man would come thru it. But he didn’t, and the nurse took Star’s blood. Cathy left her sitting there while she went to pay the bill, and then made her wrap up to run the gauntlet to the car.

The man wasn’t there when they came out. He hadn’t gone into the back for any bloodwork; he’d just disappeared. Cathy was sure he’d gone away and made his report, and was waiting on the corner to follow them. So they went to the department store and bought Star some maternity clothes. Then they took the roundabout way home, and this time it took over an hour of aimlessly wandering thru the streets until Cathy was satisfied they were unwatched. Still, she pulled into a gas station and got down on hands and knees once again, peering under the car for tracking devices that weren’t there.

She called Gray on the way home, wanting him to check the neighborhood for suspicious people, cars, or shadows. So he took a short dog walk and investigated the neighborhood. After the all-clear, Cathy pulled into the alley and hustled Star into the house.

“I just want you to know,” Star said as she took off her uncomfortable old-lady clothes, “that this is the last time you’re going to get me to do that.” She dropped the dress on the floor and kicked it. “That was so humiliating. What if one of my friends had seen me in this stuff?”

Cathy cringed. “Thank God,” she said. “You’re right. It could too easily have turned out badly. We won’t do that again, never fear”

“Good.” Star slammed the attic door on her mother. Then, several minutes later, she yelled down to Cathy to make her some lunch and bring it upstairs.

Richard called, looking for Star. It was unusual that he hadn’t heard from her. She normally called him once a week, asking for money. And he was worried about Stumbles, too.

“Why, I haven’t seen her for awhile,” she lied, hoping he couldn’t tell.

“I’m very concerned,” he said. “The little bitch has probably sold her dog for crack, and I’m mad enough that I’m seriously considering calling the police and reporting it stolen.”

Cathy was glad he wasn’t in on the secret. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “Star came by for a few minutes last week, and dropped her dog off with me. She seems to think Stumbles will get more attention from me than she would from you, and I have Scootie and Tabasco to keep her company when I’m too busy or out of the house.”

Richard grumbled, but he sounded relieved that someone had the dog. “You could have called me to tell me you had the dog,” he complained.

“Well, you could have dropped by for dinner,” she said, knowing that an invitation was just the thing he needed to encourage him to stay away. He was so like her mother that way.

He muttered something about how busy he was, and got off the phone. Cathy breathed a sigh of relief.

But he called back the next day. That was unusual. He wanted to complain, and the previous conversation hadn’t been long enough to suit him. So Cathy wandered around the house cleaning while he went on and on and on.

“I don’t see why she couldn’t have gotten an abortion,” he said. Cathy held her tongue, and held the phone away from her ear, but soon she needed both hands, and cradled it between neck and shoulder again while she swept the floor. “She must have inherited bad genes. I’m not saying she necessarily got them from you, maybe she got them from me. God knows my side of the family is screwed up enough. I just can’t understand how she could throw away so much potential to go live with a cretinous mountain man like that Spike.”

Cathy put the phone down to gather the dust and dog fur into the waste pan. She was tempted not to pick it up again. When she did, she heard him saying, “…owes me somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars now, counting the lawyer fees, bail, her car, and all that schooling she’s thrown away.”

“Oh, come on, Richard. Her school wasn’t a waste. She got educated very well on the money we spent sending her to school.”

He argued. He’d called up to argue. Cathy let him. “She wasted it al. My dad agrees. If she had gone to college, she wouldn’t have wasted it. If she’d gotten a decent job she wouldn’t have wasted it. What did we educate her for – to live in a trailer that’s going to get blown away in the first strong wind? To raise a bunch of illiterate children with rotten teeth? To end up in jail because of her no-good drug-dealer boyfriend?”

She put the phone down again while she made the bed, went to the bathroom, and made herself another cup of coffee. “…going to have another round of layoffs. I know I’m next. They look very dimly at employees who rack up huge medical expenses so their layabout family members can waste their time in rehab and then go straight back onto the drugs. I’ve managed to get my name on their shit list because of all that I’ve cost them, and believe me, they’ll take their revenge in a few short weeks. You watch.”

“Oh, Richard,” she soothed, even tho he didn’t deserve it, “they’re not going to lay you off because of Star being in rehab. They’re much more likely to lay you off because your work sucks.”

“And I can lay that directly at her door. In fact, when I lose my job because of that conniving compulsive liar, I can put another hundred thousand dollars on top of the money she already owes me, for lost wages.”

“What about pain and suffering?” Cathy asked, stifling a laugh.

“That, too. I’m sure I never bargained for this when you first told me you were pregnant. If I had known how much trouble she was going to be, I would have tied you down and gone after her with a coat hanger myself.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Cathy couldn’t stand knowing he hadn’t wanted their child. She got really angry and hung up the phone.

He called right back. “I see I’ve upset you with my frank and honest opinions that my sperm donation turned out so badly. Like I said, it’s bad genes. I should have gotten a vasectomy.”

“I never would have married you.”

“Maybe that would have been for the best, as well.”

She fluttered her hands at the phone. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”

Cathy hated hearing Richard go on like that. All she could do was wonder why she ever married him, and after conversations like that, the only thing she could come up with was that he’d given her Star. The whole reason for their ten year marriage might have been just to have Star. And the more he went on about how sorry he was that his life was full of shit, the more she felt that it might have been the only reason. It wasn’t as if she still loved him. She put up with him because he was Star’s father, and they still shared a certain responsibility for her. But she felt the whole burden on her, and had grown tired of it years before.

Gray was her only consolation. He was everything that Richard wasn’t, including rational, sane, and cheery. So she went down to the workshop in the basement and hung out with him for awhile.

Gray was working on his surveillance project, and proudly showed off his collection of jury-rigged devices for watching whoever showed up to watch them. Homemade security cameras positioned under the eaves showed several views of the front of the house, the back, and out into the street. Hidden microphones made out of old headphones were poised at both doors, and wired into the bushes, so Gray could hear anyone approaching the house. He had made a tap for the phone line and was recording all phone conversations, and had invested in a key-stroke monitor for the computer, so he could catch Star sending emails or instant messangering.

Cathy was thankful she wasn’t trying to put something past her husband.

And it was just in time. As Cathy climbed the steps to go start fixing dinner, she noticed a large truck parked across the street. It looked familiar. So she harnessed Tabasco and Scootie and went back downstairs to get Gray for an impromptu dog walk past the truck. Gray had already noticed it, and had plugged in his homemade cellphone bug so he could record any conversations the occupant might be having while sitting in the truck.

As they walked by, they saw a tall figure with sticky-out ears scrunched down in the driver’s seat. Cathy freaked out, handed Scootie’s leash to Gray, who went on, and ran back to the house. She spent the rest of the afternoon sneaking peaks out of the front door, watching Spike watching the house.

She didn’t sleep very well that night. And every time she went to the window to look, his truck was still there. Once or twice she saw the dull ember of his cigarette glowing in the dark.

go to tomorrow’s writing

Day Nineteen

Star took surprisingly well to being locked in her room. She had the run of the house while Cathy and Gray were around, so it wasn’t as if her door as always locked. She slept all day, as usual, and watched TV and played Sims all night. She refrained from using the phone, and Cathy had passworded her computer so Star couldn’t send emails. She was completely safe from discovery. So Cathy thought, anyway. Gray wasn’t so sure.

She began to show. Star had been a skinny little thing, especially after being a cokehead for awhile. Now she was starting to put on weight. Cathy encouraged her to eat, and made batches of cookies and pineapple upside down cakes to tempt her out of the attic. Star developed an interest in cooking, and started downloading recipes from Cathy’s computer.

Cathy was relieved. Star had never shown any interest in cooking before, and now she was insisting on making dinner several times a week. It was usually a variation on fried chicken and cheese mashed potatoes, but that was fine with Cathy. She fond herself sitting in the armchair in a corner of the kitchen, holding one or both of the little dogs on her lap, advising Star on various points of cooking.

Cathy’s food sensitivities meant that Star couldn’t follow the recipes that started with, “Open a can of whatever,” and tho Star bitched about it, it meant she had to learn how to cook the old fashioned way. From scratch. She made macaroni and cheese. She made biscuits. She made soup. She learned how to roast a chicken. She made barbeque sauce and pan gravy and white sauce. She learned how to broil a steak and make tuna salad and fry apple fritters. She learned how to do mirepoix and roux and bouquet garni.

Cathy was very pleased. No matter what else Star took away from her time at home while she was pregnant, she’d at least know how to cook. Before this, all she knew how to do was order out, open cans, and microwave frozen meals. Now she could make anything.

And Star put on the weight. As her belly got bigger, her thighs got bigger, her arms got bigger. Cathy kept running out of vitamin E cream because of the ever-expanding area of potential stretch marks. Star, charmingly, thought she was the same size as ever, except for her belly. Cathy started to warn her about how long it had taken her to lose all that extra weight she’d put on when she was eating for two, but Star couldn’t accept that she was getting chunky. It was the hormones, maybe, Cathy thought. They cause you to see what you want to in the mirror.

She spent a lot of time studying her midwifery texts. There as so much to know. She keep track of Star’s vital signs from week to week, and got a blood pressure cuff and a speculum so she could monitor the baby. She would have loved a fetal doppler, to watch the baby’s heartbeat, but it was $1,000. A fetoscope would have to do.

As time went on, and Star got bigger and bigger, Cathy realized she was going to have to get some bloodwork done for things Cathy couldn’t determine at home. This was a problem. She couldn’t take Star to the doctor’s because she’d already missed too many appointments, and questions would be asked. She could just never mind the bloodwork, but what if Star was developing a serious condition like anemia or diabetes, or had hepatitis, or her Rh compatibility with the baby was wrong? She couldn’t risk not knowing.

So she called up Greane, who was still on pregnancy Medicaid, with an eye toward borrowing her Medicaid card. She got Greane’s mother, who told her that Greane was in the hospital. Not the medical hospital, but the psychiatric hospital.

“Oh,” was all Cathy could say.

They’d done a drug test on her when she went to the hospital to have the baby, and found coke, marijuana, antidepressants, opiates, barbiturates, cotinine, benzodiazepines, and alcohol. That was just about everything that someone could take, except for meth, PCP and GHB. They showed up in the baby’s system, too. So the baby had been removed from her custody, and she was put in rehab involuntarily, and then moved to the psych ward.

“Oh.” So, I guess borrowing her Medicaid card wouldn’t be possible, she thought. It would probably be foolish, because they might decide Star was Greane and call the cops. “Oh.”

Then, on the way to the store later, she and Gray passed a billboard. Any (Lab) Test $29.95. “That’s what we’ll do,” she said, and wrote the number down on the back of her hand.

So she made careful preparations to sneak Star out of the house to go have her blood drawn. She checked with the lab; they wouldn’t let her draw Star’s blood herself, even when she claimed to be a nurse, and insisted that Star was homebound.

go to tomorrow’s writing

Day Eighteen

Star’s belly didn’t show yet. But she slept as if she were eight months pregnant. Cathy’s days were filled with plaintive cries from Star’s bedroom. “Mom, make me some pancakes. Mom, bring me some orange juice. Mom, I’m out of my shampoo, and your smells bad. Mom, tell Gray to stop making so much noise downstairs. Mom, I’m hungry.” Cathy’s nights were filled, not with hot sex, but with putting cream on her daughter’s belly and tossing and turning to the sounds of Law and Order, gunfire, screaming, cheap dramatic music, and the brilliant dialogue of slasher movies.

There was a certain distance between her and Gray. Not that they weren’t affectionate and caring toward one another, just that Cathy was tired all the time and preoccupied with Star and her chances of being found out. Every siren that cruised by could be coming to their door. Every phone conversation could be taped. Every homeless guy coming up onto the porch for a handout might be undercover. The fact that it never turned out bad didn’t mollify Cathy a bit.

And then it did. There was a knock at the door. Star was in the kitchen, complaining with the fridge door wide open that there was nothing to eat in the house. Cathy went to the door, annoyed with Star for making her into a waiter and short order cook, and thinking of something snappy to say to her complaints. There was a tall, gangly shadow on the door glass.

“Star, quick, get back into your room,” she hissed. Star shot her a glance full of scorn, but went into her room. And turned the TV up. Great, thought Cathy. Anyone will know its her just by the sound.

The shadow at the door was Spike. “Hello, Ma’am, he said politely, touching his brow as if he had a hat on. “I’m looking for Star.”

Cathy looked him in the face, trying not to look down or look away, trying not to look like she was lying. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen Star in awhile,” she said simply, standing behind the screen door just waiting for him to ask to come in.

But he didn’t. “I spoke to her just the other day on the phone, here, at your house,” he said. “I have reason to believe you’re harboring her.”

So formal. “I guess she must be staying with friends,” Cathy said. Her father hasn’t seen her in some time. He told me you and she had stopped by to get her things.”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Well, that’s funny. I thought she was down living with you.”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Hmmm.”

“I need to find her. I’ve got something important to discuss with her.”

“Oh. Well, she was here a few days ago, long enough to use the phone. If I see her again, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’d appreciate it. It’s important,” he repeated.

Cathy assumed he wanted to talk about their baby, or their marriage plans. “Are you two planning on getting married, still?”

He looked away. “No Ma’am, I mean yes Ma’am, but that’s not what I need to talk to her about. It really is important that I speak with her. Are you sure she’s not around?” He tried to peer over her shoulder into the kitchen. Cathy could hear the TV; so could Spike. “I hear voices,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve got the TV on while I do my ironing,” she lied. “Some silly game show or soap opera. It distracts me.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he said doubtfully. “Please let me know if you see her again. It’s really important.”

Cathy got a dangerous vibe off the boy. He was the soul of politeness, but she could sense the gun in his waistband, and the truck he’d parked at the curb was big enough to run right up her front porch steps and crash into her living room. He scared her. His eyes, which she used to think rather squinty, now looked hooded and malevolent. His sticky-out ears and close cropped hair now reminded her of a hedgehog or a wild boar. He loomed over her, behind the screen, and even thru the yes Ma’am and no Ma’am she felt the threat. Of what? she wondered.

Once she’d seen him drive away, she went back to Star’s room to find out more about what she’d obviously failed to disclose the first time.

“Spike was here,” she announced.

The TV had been on so loud that Star hadn’t noticed. She looked distressed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I want to see him so bad.” She flopped back on her bed in despair.

“I want to know why he was here looking for you. He knows you called him from this house. Are you sure you used call blocker?”

She looked uncertain. “I’m pretty sure.”

Cathy sighed. “Maybe you told him you were at my house?”

“Maybe. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want him to see you.”

She wailed. “But why not?”

Because it’s dangerous for anyone to see you.”

“Not Spike! He loves me.”

Cathy was unsure. Maybe not Spike. If he was as devoted to her as he seemed, then he could help to hide her. He had more experience with people on the lam than she did. Maybe she was being too cautious. But her gut told her otherwise. “I know he does, sweetie. But you’ve chosen to hide from the cops, and so you have to hide from everybody.”

“I do not! You’re just keeping me a prisoner.”

Gray came upstairs “What was all that about?” he asked.

Cathy filled him in, feeling confused about her instinct to quarantine her daughter. She hoped that Gray could help her resolve it, and help Star agree to stay hidden.

Gray thought about Spike’s visit. “Do you know why he might have come by?” he asked Star.

“Because he loves me, and he’s concerned about where I am.”

Gray nodded. “But what other reasons might he be interested in where you are?”

Star rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Why don’t you two leave me alone?”

He persisted. “He’s a bail bondsman, isn’t he?” Star nodded. “Do you know who your dad went to when he bailed you out of jail?” She shook her head.

Cathy had been on the verge of letting Star see her boyfriend, but something in Gray’s question made her hesitate. “Don’t use the phone,” she snapped as she and Gray left the room.

She called Richard. “Who did you use as bail bondsman when you got Star out of jail.”

“I forget,” he said immediately, his first reaction being to say anything to get her off the phone.

Just like Star, Cathy thought. “It’s important. I need to know.”

He must have been very busy with a computer problem. She expected him to ask her sarcastically just why she needed to know, but instead he was silent for half a minute, and the said “Everywhere Bonding. I think.”

“Do you know if that’s the bonding company Spike and his grandma own?”

“No, I don’t. Look, I really have to go now. I’ve got a computer emergency.”

“They’re all emergencies. Just turn it off and turn it back on and see if that doesn’t do it.”

“Har har.”

Then she called Everywhere Bonding, using the call block feature on her phone. She really must find out what it cost one of these days.

“Everywhere Bonding,” came a young woman’s voice.

Cathy felt relieved. It wasn’t the grandma. “Can I speak to the owner?”

“She’s not here.” She wasn’t going to volunteer anything, Cathy knew. As closed-mouthed as cops.

Cathy thought fast. “I think I’ve dealt with you before. But I’m not sure. Can you tell me if a young man named Spike works there?”

“Sure,” she said. Her voice changed, as if she really liked him.

“Okay, thanks,” Cathy said, and hung up.

She told Gray what she’d found out. “That explains his visit,” he said. “She skipped out on his bond, and now he’s looking for her to turn her in.”

“Let’s tell Star.”

But Star didn’t believe them. “Spike would never turn me in. He loves me.” The couple looked at each other. This was bad. He would try again and again to find her, and she would practically waltz into his arms one fine morning when Cathy and Star were out walking the dogs.

Something had to be done.

So Cathy went back to her plans for the attic. She nailed boards over the dormer windows, and put up heavy blankets and rugs on the sloping ceiling to block any light and to insulate the little room she was building. Gray put a lock on the outside of the attic door and cut a hole for a doggie hatch. He made another little door for her, thru the wall into the bathroom so she could use it whenever she needed to. Then he put a lock on the bathroom door so she couldn’t get into the rest of the house.

Cathy moved the oil filled radiator into the attic, and she and Gray assembled a spare brass bed they’d stored up there for years, and took the mattresses out of big plastic bags, and put rugs down on the floor, and suspended rugs along the makeshift walls like tapestries, and installed floor lamps around the bed, and found a desk to put in one corner, and emptied a chest of drawers of its junk and moved it to another corner, and dusted off a rocking chair to put in the third. It was small. It was cozy. It was adorably private. And it was where Star was going to spend the next seven months. All it needed was Star and her TV, and it would be home.

Star screamed bloody murder. “This is worse than jail. I’m not going up there. You’re going to lock me in and keep me there, and I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t deserve this.”

Cathy was cold. “Then I’ll drive you down to the courthouse right now and you can have your baby in jail.”

“Where’s Spike? He’ll fix it.”

Cathy laughed. “Yeah, he’ll fix it so his bonding company doesn’t lose the bail they paid on you.”

She screamed. “You’re lying. I don’t believe you.”

“Look,” Cathy said, trying to calm her down. “You don’t have to be locked up there all the time. We just want to make sure you can’t sabotage yourself when we’re not around. When we’re home, you can hang out in the kitchen while I make dinner, you can eat with us. You can even take a bath when you want to. We just can’t let you run around the house. People are looking for you.”

“Yeah, they’re looking for me to take me away from you two crazies.”

“Go back to jail, then.”

Reluctantly, Star let herself be moved up into the attic. She had nothing positive to say about the work Cathy had put into making it comfortable. She complained how uncomfortable it was, in fact, even when Cathy pointed out how much warmer it was with the sun on the roof and the insulating blankets and rugs. Star pointed out how none of the rugs and blankets matched, and then complained about the mattress, and complained some more about the secret door into the bathroom.

But she stayed up there, and didn’t protest very much when they locked her in for the night. “You’ll be sorry if there’s a fire and I’m locked in the attic,” she threatened.

Cathy responded by taking away her lighter. “You’re not supposed to smoke while you’re pregnant,” she said.

go to tomorrow’s writing

Day Seventeen

Cathy was awake during the night. Sounds of mayhem and horror were coming from Star’s room, and this disturbed Cathy. She pictured Star, asleep, the violence entering her ears and making its way to her brain, causing her deep anxieties and bad dreams. Not to mention what the baby was going thru. The little tyke woke and slept thru the night, and maybe by now his little ears were developed enough to hear ambient sounds.

She tiptoed into Star’s room and shut the TV off. Then she spent the rest of her waking time wondering about the baby. How big was he now? How developed? What would develop next? What could go wrong with Star’s pregnancy? What could go wrong with the birth?

By morning Cathy was a mess. Visions of women in pain floated in front of her eyes. The cries of dying babies echoed in her ears. There was blood everywhere in her imagination. She went and searched her bookshelves after the morning dog walk, looking for her midwife texts. But it had been over twenty years since she’d had anything to do with birthing babies, and those books had long since been packed in the attic. At least she knew about where to look, she thought wryly as she clumped up the steps, hoping not to wake Star with her movements.

There were three books. Two were straight textbooks for nurses, one was a lay book from the hippie days when home births were all the rage. Cathy had almost become a midwife. She’d studied for several years, and apprenticed briefly to a lay midwife with a thriving practice. One thing she’d learned in that time – all babies are born at 4 AM. At least, all the ones she had to get out of bed and drive twenty miles to attend were born then.

She would have continued her apprenticeship, because she loved the process of childbirth, but for two things. Richard. He hated the midwife she was apprenticing with. He called her a man-hating lesbian, which was true, and never had anything nice to say about her. He was rude to her face, and growled at her whenever she would come over to Cathy’s house. And he was certain that Cathy would get sued the first time she delivered a baby, and they’d wind up penniless simply because Cathy wouldn’t get a normal job, but had to save the world hugging trees and eating granola. So he put up a stink, and didn’t back down until Cathy stopped getting up to go to 4 AM births.

She wiped the dust off the covers, and brought the books down to the living room chair, where she sat with a second cup of coffee to look them over. She remembered much of what she’d studied, and knew that she only lacked the practical experience. But that was the most important aspect of it, because the books were always there for reference, but if something went wrong, she wouldn’t know until she was right in the middle of it, her options narrowed down to panic, and call the hospital.

She was filled with doubts. She obviously didn’t have enough experience to deliver Star’s baby. She could do all the prenatal things without any fear, unless Star developed problems, but when it came time for the birth, there were just too many things that could go wrong, and she was filled with fear, months ahead of time.

She thumbed thru the pages. Pre-eclampsia, diabetes, stroke, cord compression and prolapse, abnormal presentation, placenta previa, polyhydramnios, postpartum hemorrhage, fetal death………..

Her stomach twisted up in knots as she perused all the things she would be responsible for ensuring didn’t happen to either her baby or her baby’s baby. It was too much to bear.

Then the thought occurred to her that she could find a real midwife to come and deliver Star. She scrambled for the internet to find the community. In the twenty years since Cathy had practiced, things had changed drastically. Lay midwifery was less practiced, because of local legalities and things like malpractice insurance, which wasn’t readily available.

But nurse midwives working with doctors in birthing centers – they were all over the place. There were midwives at Star’s birth center. Surely there would be one who might consider doing a home birth and not reporting it. But the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Midwives working with a doctor were very much attached to the medical system, and they wouldn’t have been trained to be independent. She needed a traditional lay midwife. And those were hard to find.

She looked up the national midwife organization, and sent off a few emails asking the availability of women in her area. This caused a bit of a flurry, because whoever was womaning the computer knew Cathy’s old midwife teacher very well, and recognized her name. So Cathy had to think before writing back. Yes, she had given up her training years ago because of her asshole ex husband. It was going to be a long email. Yes, she was thinking of getting into it again. No, she didn’t want to begin her apprenticeship again after all these years. She really wanted to find the services of a lay midwife who wanted to do a home birth. Who wanted to come in at the last minute and do a home birth that Cathy would do all the preparation for. Who wanted to do a home birth and not report it. Who wanted to do a home birth with a fugitive from the law.

In the end, she didn’t send the email. She would have to talk to someone, and be very persuasive. The right kind of midwife might consider it, but it was very risky to them, legally, as well as Cathy and Star. It seemed that she was going to have to go as far as possible with this herself, and pray that nothing went wrong.

The problem with going to the hospital at the last minute was that the minute the authorities figured out who Star was, they would whisk her off to jail, and the baby would go into state custody. If they could avoid calling official notice to her until after she’d had the baby, then Cathy could keep watch on the poor thing and Star could go turn herself in, and everything would turn out okay. Maybe after a couple of months, so she could breast feed.

Or maybe she could just move to Canada or Mexico and live the life of the expatriate. Cathy was fantasizing at this point. When she was a girl, making the kinds of mistakes that might lead one to think about leaving the country and living somewhere else, under the radar, that kind of thing was easy to do. Just go, and don’t draw attention to yourself, and don’t ask for help of any kind from the authorities. These days, with electronics everywhere, it was highly unlikely that Star would stay hidden in another country for more than a few weeks; less, if they were looking for her. Cathy suspected this, but it didn’t stop her fantasies.

Then Mom called.

“How’s Star?”

“Um, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for awhile.”

“What do you mean? She answered the phone when I called yesterday, and we had a nice chat. She’s living with you now. The baby’s the size of a grape.”

Cathy made a note to kill Star when she got off the phone. “Um, yeah.” She wanted to explain the whole mess, and to say it in such a way as to keep her mom from getting excited. But how do you tell your mom that your daughter is running from the law and hiding out at your place?

You don’t. She realized that she couldn’t tell her mom anything. She hadn’t told her about Star’s legal trouble, and so she couldn’t tell her she was hiding out to avoid having her baby taken away. The only answer was to get off the phone fast.

But Mom wanted to talk. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay?”

Cathy felt like she was strangling. “Yes,” she croaked. “It’s fine. She’s brought her dog with her.” Stumbles was at that moment up on her hind legs, scrabbling with her front paws on Cathy’s leg, wanting to be picked up or fed or something. It was wearing holes in Cathy’s sweatpants.

“Oh, that’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see the little thing. I love dogs.”

“Um.” No, Mom, you can’t come, she wanted to cry out. But her voice wasn’t working. She didn’t dare say it. Telling Mom not to come was like issuing an open invitation.

“I thought I could fly down at the end of this week. I could stay for a week or two, if that’s alright.

Cathy wondered if that wouldn’t be better than having her come later. But the complications overwhelmed her immediately. “Where would we put you?” she protested.

Mom was prepared. “Oh, I could stay on a mattress in the living room, if you didn’t have anywhere else to put me.”

“That wouldn’t do at all, Mom. The dogs would be all over you, and we wouldn’t be able to move. You could sleep on the futon in the basement.”

“My knees, Cathy. I can’t go up and down those steps like I used to. Why, most nights here at home, I sleep on the couch.”

Cathy could just see it. Mom, on the couch, half covered by a blanket, the TV blaring Christian messages. Then she saw her doing the same here, in her living room. She shuddered.

“Well, Mom, it’s a little crazy here, and I don’t have room for you right now. Let me have a couple of weeks to fix things up, and I’ll try to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve you sleeping on the floor in the living room.”

“But I don’t mind,” she protested.

“Hmm, well, Gray would,” she insisted, feeling a little guilty for pulling bad cop-good cop on her mother.

“Oh, he won’t mind. Don’t you want me down there?”

“I just want to make sure Star is settled and the house is back to normal before you come. The dogs…”

“I can’t wait to see Star’s little Stumbles. She’s told me so much about her. I’m going to want to take her home with me, you know.”

Cathy saw Mom asleep on the couch, the white mop of Star’s dog covering her face, looking just like Gray with his flowing beard.

She got off the phone and stalked into Star’s room. “I thought I warned you about answering the phone,” shse started.

Star was watching America’s Next Top Model, and was all wrapped up in the latest girl to be thrown out of the program. “Shhh,” she said, and went on staring at the TV.

Cathy walked over and turned it off, and stood in front of it so Star wouldn’t be able to turn it back on with the remote. I learned that trick, she thought. “I told you not to answer the phone.”

“Who was that, Grandma? What’s wrong with talking to her?”

“Nothing. Well, not nothing, but never mind. The problem is in picking the phone up at all. I told you not to do that. It’s dangerous.”

“It is not. Grandma isn’t going to turn me in.”

“That’s not the point, Star. You can’t answer the phone at all, any time, to anyone.”

Star sneered. “Well, if you had caller ID like normal people, then I’d know who was on the other end. Can I pleases have my TV back on now?”

“No.” Cathy sighed. “We don’t have caller ID because we’re on a fixed income which is barely adequate to feed you and keep the heat up as far as you want it.”

Star snorted and snuggled deeper beneath the covers. “It’s nowhere near as warm as I need it. Normal people turn the heat on in the winter.”

Cathy looked at the portable heater blaring away on both burners, not three feet from Star’s bed. “You have enough heat,” she said flatly. “You’re pregnant. We could attach leads from your body and you could heat the house yourself at this point.”

“Well, I feel cold,” she stated resentfully.

Cathy shook her head. “That’s snot the point. We don’t have caller ID because we don’t need it. You are not allowed to answer the phone because it might be someone who is looking for you. If you want to ignore this rule, you might as well go turn yourself in down at the courthouse, and take your chances with having the baby in jail. You will not answer the phone while you’re living here, is that clear?”

Cathy hated sounding authoritarian. She’d hated it when her mother laid down the law. She hated hearing herself say it. But it was the reality. Star couldn’t answer the phone, it was a ticking time bomb. But she couldn’t get thru to her. “I’m going to have to discontinue phone service if you won’t stop. Do you want that?” Star muttered something. Cathy was immediately suspicious. “Have you been calling people?”

Star looked away. “Can I have the TV back on now?”

“Who have you called? Who knows you’re here?”

“Nobody. I didn’t tell anyone where I was.”

“I’ll bet they all have caller ID on their cellphones, don’t they?”

Star looked triumphant. “I’m not that stupid. I pressed star 67 first to block the number.”

“What did that cost us?”

Star snorted. “I don’t care.”

Cathy started to protest, but where money was concerned – where Cathy and Gray’s money was concerned – Star didn’t give a shit what things cost. Not a good avenue for discussion.

“What did you tell them? What did they want to know?”

Star was offended. “None of your business what I said and what they said. Now can I please have my TV back on and will you go away and leave me alone? I’m tired.”

“I need to get something straight with you. You’re hiding out from the law. I’m responsible for you. If you get yourself caught, I could go to jail for hiding you. I’m at risk here, and so I have a right to know what you’ve been telling people.”

Star looked at her like You do not, but answered vaguely. “I just told them that I was staying at a friend’s house for awhile.”

Cathy still felt dread. She couldn’t be sure Star hadn’t come out with a series of complaints against her mother the hide-bound authoritarian. She would have if she hadn’t known she shouldn’t, and perhaps she said something about her anyway.

“Did you complain about me?”

“What do you care? No. I didn’t say a word about you.”

“How many people have you talked to?”

Star looked away. “I talked to Greane. She’s had her baby…”

“That’s nice. Who else?”

“Don’t you care about her baby?”

“Not at the moment. Who else?”

“I talked to Spike.”

“You can’t talk to either of them. Who else?”

“Well, I talked to Grandma.”

Cathy slumped down onto the bed. Grandma. “I don’t know what to say to Grandma. She doesn’t know anything about your being arrested or hiding from the cops here.” Star looked away. “Does she?”

“Well, I said something about not wanting Dad to know where I was, but I don’t think she likes him very much. She sounded glad.”

“Yeah, she hates him. She’d take that at face value. She doesn’t know about rehab, either. If you talk to her again, please be very careful not to mention any of these things. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Yeah. Okay. Now can I have my TV back on?”

Cathy sighed and got up. Whatever precautions needed taking, it was clear that she couldn’t trust Star to take them. She had the sensibility of a child, which, Cathy reflected, she still was. Whatever was she going to do to protect her, despite Star’s unthinking ways?

go to tomorrow’s writing

Day Sixteen

As a matter of fact, Gray was very much against the idea. Star wasn’t mature enough to carry thru on a plan to clean her room, never mind conducting a conspiracy to hide from the law. They would undoubtedly issue a bench warrant for her, and someone would figure out that she’d gone to her mother’s house. It was the first place they’d look. Cathy and Gray would face criminal charges for hiding her, as well. Someone could get shot while resisting arrest. All sorts of things could go wrong with Cathy’s simple impulse to help her child.

Tho he was opposed, he went along with it. They were married, and what one contracted for, the other was obliged to finish, so he thought about how he could make things more secure around the house, so at least when the cops came looking, they would be watched themselves, and Gray and Cathy would have advanced notice of anything they might be up to.

He thought he might have a few devices in the workshop that might do for a rudimentary security system. So he unpiled a bunch of stuff in the corner until he came across some old TVs and a few hundred yards of cables, and rummaged thru his shelves until he found some electronic bits and pieces, and started cobbling things together. And – this was just like Gray – he didn’t bother telling anyone what he was doing, he just went about doing it.

But he wasn’t happy about the idea of Star moving back in. She always took much more of Cathy’s attention and time than he was happy with. He sat back and watched his wife slave for her daughter, and the little ingrate never said thanks, never lifted a finger to do anything herself, and berated her mom for her efforts. And she was purposely mean to Gray, and went out of her way to insult him and make life harder.

Not that he minded her rudeness to him. He thought it was funny, a child thinking she was ruler of the house, that she was so much smarter and more powerful than either he or Cathy was. It was funny because he knew that one day she would learn better. Simply because she would get her comeuppance one of these days, he could sit back and laugh at her attempts to make his life miserable.

But he couldn’t stand when she did it to Cathy. Another man would have pretended not to notice, because no sane person gets between a mother and a daughter, especially when they’re fighting. But he was a husband of the old school, and tried to protect his wife from all upsets, even when they came from her own flesh and blood. All he could do, however, was to be the strong shoulder for her to lean on, and cry on, and fall asleep on. So he stewed whenever Star was mean to her mom, and looked for ways to make her life easier.

But now Cathy was putting them in danger by trying to protect her daughter. Star was putting them in danger by trying to protect her unborn baby. And all he could do was try to protect them both. But they didn’t seem to notice how powerful the long arm of the law was, and how weak their attempts to hide would seem once they were finally caught.

He was committed to supporting her decision, no matter how foolhardy it might be. But he didn’t have to like it, and the danger they were in nagged at him. He was normally a happy person, but he was becoming something very close to irritable.

On the dog walk, he was distracted, a faint sense of doom hanging over him. Cathy didn’t notice, because she was thinking about what she had to do to get Star settled in. They walked around the block in silence, Gray spending all his effort snatching Tabasco from various smelly places, Cathy dragging Scootie without noticing.

“Whoa,” Gray said when Scootie stopped to take a dump. Scootie looked up at Cathy as she turned to see what the delay was. Please let me finish, she demanded. Cathy’s first instinct had been to pull harder when she felt the tug on Scootie’s leash. She didn’t have time to lollygag along, she had to get back and start moving furniture. And how was she supposed to get all of Star’s stuff without anybody figuring out what she was up to?

She and Gray made a trip down to Richard’s for some essential things Star needed. They waited until he was at work, and swooped down on his house, prying up a window that Cathy remembered never locked. They took Star’s bedding and her clothes, and snagged Stumbles from the crate where Richard had her locked up during the day. He hadn’t let Star take her dog with her when she moved to Spike’s, arguing that she was just going to sell the dog for crack, and he’d paid far too much to have that happen.

Cathy wondered how Richard would view the apparent theft of all of Star’s stuff, and waited nervously for a phone call demanding to know what was going on. She figured he’d come home, discover at least the dog missing, check the video cameras he had placed about the house, and discover that Cathy and Gray had done the deed.

But it was a full week before she heard from him. “That evil little bitch, or her scumbag boyfriend, or both, came and cleared out the house, including my dog. They even broke into my locked closest and ransacked that.” Cathy was shocked to hear this. She and Gray hadn’t even gone into his bedroom. How much of what he’d been reporting the last few months was true, if he was making up things to add to the stuff they’d actually taken?

“Was anything missing from your closet?” she asked, waiting to see how far he would go. She was up in the attic reorganizing, just in case.

“All my valium, a bottle of oxycontin, my ambien, my zanax, half a carton of cigarettes, and a quarter ounce of pot.”

Cathy shook her head. She’d had no idea. “What, no crack?” she asked. She was in the crawlspace along the edge of the roof, shifting boxes full of ancient papers, trying to avoid roofing nails, spider webs and old rat shit.

“Very funny. I haven’t done that since I checked myself into rehab when Star was a baby.”

She piled a bunch of old iron bed rails in front of the boxes and eyed a rolled up carpet that she just might be able to shift on top of the rails by herself. “Yeah, it always amused me that you consider yourself cured of your drug habit when you just traded illegal for prescription drugs.”

“I need every one of them,” he insisted. “I came home to find the house turned upside down and there wasn’t a single pill to help me calm down. You can’t imagine the stress.”

Cathy was out of sympathy. They’d left the house neater than when they’d entered. She stacked boxes of books in front of the carpet, making an aisle in the middle. “Didn’t you catch whoever did this on your videos?”

He hesitated. “I disabled them when she left to go live with her coke dealer. You can rest assured I’ll have them hooked up again by this evening.”

“Sure.” She doubted he’d ever installed them. “I’ve got to go now. I’m cleaning and I need both hands.”

He laughed. “You. Cleaning. You probably need a whole crew to help you. That house has so much dust in it I’m surprised you’re not sneezing.”

“In fact, I just finished a sneezing fit.” She straightened up and headed for a stack of milk crates full of kitchen things that would now fit next to the books. “Got to go.”

Cathy was slowly clearing a space in the center of the attic, where the roof was tall enough to stand under. Maybe if she could stack everything up around the corners it would be possible to rig some sort of wall out of old blankets, make a little room Star might be willing to stay in. It was dirty work; her clothes and hair were full of dust.

Star was lying in bed watching TV, and was a little put out by the noise Cathy was making over her head. She didn’t seem inclined to move up into the attic. She didn’t see that it would be necessary. “I’ll just stay in my room,” she insisted. “I won’t come out. Nobody will see me.” She balked at having the phone taken away, too, and was incensed at the idea that she wasn’t allowed to call anyone or even answer the phone. Gray could already see trouble over the phone, but Cathy was still trying to talk reason into Star.

“You can’t call your friends,” she explained. “Any one of them could turn you in.”

“They won’t turn me in,” she insisted.

“The cops will be listening in on our phone calls. They’ll catch you that way.”

“Nobody will be listening. They won’t even be looking for me.”

“Yes they will.” Cathy felt like screaming. “You can’t just go on like normal. You’re an outlaw now.”

Star laughed at her. “Mom, quit being so dramatic. All I’m doing is not showing up for court. Nothing will happen.”

“What did your lawyer say when you told her you were going to do this?”

Star looked away. “I didn’t tell her that part.”

“Oh.” Cathy was going on the supposition that Star’s lawyer had at least known what she was planning. Thinking about it, Cathy realized that Star’s lawyer would not only disapprove, but would be legally bound to turn her in herself if she knew. Things began to feel sticky.

She called her friend Miranda. She’d know what to do. But as she was beginning to tell her the story, it occurred to her that the cops might well be listening in, and so she arranged to see Miranda somewhere else. “Let’s meet in the park, and I’ll bring Scootie, and you can see how well she’s doing.”

Away from any possibility of hidden microphones, for Cathy was just beginning to be paranoid, and thought it best that she develop the full set of symptoms sooner than later, she told Miranda the full story.

“So she’s going to live with you, and you’re going to hide her from the police?” Miranda asked incredulously as they walked along the brow of the hill overlooking the duck pond.

Cathy felt a little foolish. “Yes,” she replied. “I just can’t let her have her baby in jail. They’ll take him and I don’t know, sell him.” Scootie was eating grass at their feet.

Miranda frowned. “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard of it happening. I do know of instances where the State has given custody to a non-relative on a permanent basis, and the child would be a newborn and much easier to place permanently. You’d have to go thru the same process as any prospective adoptive parent if you wanted to get custody.” She reached down and picked up her ex dog. “What a cutie.” The dog looked at her. You look somewhat familiar. Did you bring me any food?

Cathy was worried about getting custody. “We’re old, and have no income. They’d never give him to us. And they’d never give him to Spike’s parents, either.”

She nodded and scratched Scootie behind the ears. “You may be right, there. But you’re putting yourselves at such risk by hiding her. How are you going to keep anyone from seeing her?”

Cathy sat down on the hillside. Miranda sat beside her and let Scootie down on the ground. She started smelling, and immediately found something delightful. “She won’t go out, and she won’t use the phone, and we’ve already put heavy drapes up on all the windows.”

Miranda was dubious. “Don’t tell me you expect her to never leave her room for, how many? Six, seven months?” She pulled a blade of grass and made a whistle with her fist.

The idea of Star being quiet for months at a time did sound a little impractical. “But with everything at stake, and she really wants this.” The whistling noise irritated Cathy.

They sat there and looked at the pond, warming their backs against the sun. Scootie ate more grass. “Honey, she’s just a child. She’ll change her mind on the first sunny day. You can’t keep her a prisoner, and you know she’s not going to want to just sit there day after day for months.”

“Why not? It’s all she does now. What’ so different?” The dog found a bug in the grass, and followed it out to the full extent of her leash.

“There’s something at stake is what’s different. From what I know of Star, she’ll sabotage herself sooner or later.” Miranda checked her watch. She was due in court in two hours.

Cathy noticed, and got up. Scootie paused to throw up in the grass. “Well, I’ll just have to be vigilant. It’s her idea, and if I have to forcibly remind her, I can do that.”

Miranda patted her ex dog, suddenly grateful that someone else had to watch her now. “Well, call me from jail when you get arrested for harboring a fugitive, okay?”

Cathy spent the rest of the afternoon snoop-proofing the house. Heavy drapes were already in place but she didn’t think it was enough and spent time frosting them as well. It was winter, so they didn’t look suspicious. She’d read up on microphones that could hear conversations right thru the glass, and figured if she somehow padded the windows then there wouldn’t be enough vibration to transmit sound. Her other option would be to play loud music all the time, but her nerves wouldn’t stand that. She thought to mention the problem to Gray during their evening dog walk.

They were out with three dogs now. Gray had Tabasco as always, and Cathy had Scootie on her lead, and an old tattered leash on Stumbles, who apparently had never been walked on a leash before. Stumbles kept rebelling, like her owner.

Gray had several ideas about how to soundproof the windows. He didn’t try to argue that nobody would ever try listening to find Star, tho it was his opinion that the easy way to find her would be to come to the front door and ask for her. Given the likelihood of Star’s successfully keeping from being seen or caught on the phone, the next obvious way to find her would be a listening device.

Tabasco found a dead squirrel, and all three dogs stopped to sniff. “You can tape up squares of felt in all the window panes.”

“But that would likely come down after a few weeks.” Cathy pulled the two dogs away from the mess. Their leashes were already tangled. They sat staring at her while she untangled them.

“Well, there’s always hanging a couple of blankets and stuffing them with some of the batting you use for your quilts.”

“But that’s impractical. And I’m not sure it would baffle the sound well enough.” Scootie walked as far behind Cathy as her leash reached. Stumbles walked as far ahead as possible. Cathy’s arms stretched.

“How about putting up bubble wrap? You could use packing tape.”

She stopped to untangle their leashes again. “I don’t know. It seems awfully makeshift. I guess what I want is a website to tell me what to do. But I couldn’t find anything except what kind of devices they’d use on us. It’s scary.”

She found something wrong with everything he suggested. Finally he said, “Well, why don’t you figure it out yourself, then? I’m tired of coming up with ideas that you can’t stand.” In truth, Cathy was beginning to remind him of Star.

She bristled. “You don’t have to get snippy about it. I’m trying to figure out something that’s way beyond me technically, and I’m still trying to make it practical and normal looking so it doesn’t raise questions.” Stumbles stopped dead in the middle of the road as Cathy approached the sidewalk. Cathy stopped to coax her forward. “Come on, Stumbles. Come on, puppy.” The dog just sat there. No way. I’m not moving. You can’t get me up there. I want to walk in the middle of the road. I want everyone to be able to see me.

“It wouldn’t raise questions if Star wasn’t trying to hide in plain sight. She’s doing nothing to help you hide her.” Tabasco found a chicken bone. Gray stopped and fished it out of his mouth with his fingers, frowned at it, and threw it into someone’s front yard.

“Come on, she’s not used to hiding like this. Give her some time to get used to the idea.” Cathy was still trying to coax the Maltese forward. Finally, irritated with Gray as much as the dog, she pulled on the leash and started walking. Highly incensed, Stumbles trotted behind her, her head raised, haughty.

He snorted. “She doesn’t have any time. Her court date has already passed. They’ve already issued a bench warrant for her. They’ll be coming by here any day looking for her.” Tabasco stopped to pee on a bag of leaves waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. “And you haven’t even convinced her to stay out of sight yet. I caught her hanging out on the front porch just this morning. Smoking a cigarette.”

“She was?” Cathy was flabbergasted. She stopped in the middle of the road and turned to Gray. “Did you chase her back in?” Stumbles came up behind Tabasco and started humping him, her little white body thrusting crazily. He looked around, surprised, at the little mop of fur on his butt, and sat down suddenly.

Gray shook his head. Tabasco got up and ran around the back of his legs. He switched the leash to his other hand. He wasn’t using it to hold Cathy’s hand, so what was the difference? “Nope. She wants to risk getting seen, that’s her problem.”

Cathy was angry. She wouldn’t have wanted to be holding his hand, even if she didn’t have two dogs to mind. “Look. We’re the adults. We have to keep her doing what’s best for her. Watch out for her best interests.”

Gray felt irritated. This was supposed to be their together time, and here they were arguing. Stumbles tried to hump Tabasco again, and he moved out of the way, right into Gray’s path. He had to jump to avoid tripping on the dog. “No, we don’t. She’s grown up enough to get herself into trouble, she can do what she needs to do by herself without dragging us into it and risking our asses.” Tabasco jumped up onto a stone wall. Gray gave his leash a yank and pulled him back down.

“I don’t believe it. You care more for our safety than hers.” Scootie stopped to pee for the tenth time. “Well, I guess that’s about right. You’re not her flesh and blood, after all.”

Tabasco paused to sniff the ground where Scootie had peed. “It’s very unfair of you to accuse me of not caring. I’ve gone out of my way to look after her, and support her, and watch out for her as if she were one of my own.”

Cathy wasn’t in the mood to acknowledge this. “Well, now I need you to do more.” She untangled the two leashes again. The dogs were braiding them together as they walked. Scootie would get in front, then lag behind, while Stumbles crossed her path and cruised ahead.

“Why?” Tabasco started pulling the moment they turned the corner and started for home. Gray staggered along behind him. “She’s not lifting a finger to contribute to her own safety. She’s being just as reckless and careless as she’s always been. And I’m tired of the risk she’s putting us in. We could lose the house.”

Stumbles sat down in the middle of the road and glared at Cathy. “All you care about is the house.” She stalked ahead, dragging the dogs. “Oh, I’m tired of this. It’s going in circles.”

It was only later, as they were getting ready for bed, that Cathy realized they hadn’t said another word to each other all evening. She looked at Gray, taking his denim shirt off over his head and folding it neatly over a chair, his bandy legs sticking out under his t-shirt, his penis shriveled up with the cold, gray hair covering his lower belly.

“Are we mad at each other?” She pulled her shirt off over her head and let it drop to the floor.

He took off his shirt, revealing a sagging belly and soft, crepey skin on his chest and arms. “I thought you would have noticed.”

“I don’t want to be mad at you.” She pulled off her pants and stepped out of them, then stepped on her socks and pulled her feet out of them.

He pulled on a nightshirt. Cathy was disappointed to see his body disappear from view. “We shouldn’t have to be. I love you.”

“Despite my wayward daughter?” She kicked all her clothes together and sent them toward her dresser, and hopped into bed

He got into bed beside her. “I love you anyway.” They leaned in to give each other a kiss. Cathy could smell their naked bodies beneath the covers, and thought sexy thoughts.

Then Star appeared at the door, crossing over to the bed. “Oh, hi, honey, what’s up?”

Star sat on the bed next to Cathy, ignoring Gray. “I want you to put cream on my belly, so I don’t get stretch marks.”

Cathy took the jar of cream, wondering if it would be good used on Gray. “What about your breasts? You get stretch marks there, too. You’re going to take care of that, aren’t you?”

Star patted her belly and leaned back on the bed. She was hardly showing. “I don’t care about that so much. I want to look good where people can see me.”

Cathy laughed and unscrewed the top of the jar. “Oh yeah, girls walk around with their bellies exposed all year round, these days. I forgot.”

Star looked at her like, duh, and sat down on the bed next to Cathy and handed her a jar of vitamin E cream. Gray settled down and got ready for sleep. This was obviously going to be a nightly event. Say so long to any chance of nookie, he thought bitterly.

go to tomorrow’s writing

Day Fifteen

And of course he didn’t kick her out. Cathy would have done well to remember that he spoke out of his feelings of the moment, and disregard everything he said. But that was the nature of their relationship. He panicked, and she calmed him down. Over and over. “I’m going to lose my job with the next layoff cycle,” he would insist three or four times a year. And she would encourage him to remember what he went thru the last time they had a layoff and skipped over him. Richard lived on the edge of despair over things that would likely never come to pass. And Cathy lived to pour oil on the waters. At least, when she was married to him. Now that she had another, more sane, husband, she found herself the one in need of reassurance more often than not.

She lay in bed with Gray one night, bemoaning her ex husband. “He says such horrible things about Star and Spike. I just can’t stand to talk to him anymore.”

“Then don’t,” he said, reaching over to take her hand. “Let me talk to him the next time he calls.”

Her hands were always so cold. His hand felt so warm. She got lost in that for a moment. “What would you say when he started in about how she’s dead to him, and how Spike’s a pig-fucking drug dealer?”

“I’d remind him how he must have seemed to his parents when he was their age. From what you told me, he was a real handful. They ought to be painful reflections that might make him back off a little.” He gently pulled her still-icy hand underneath the covers.

She laughed. “He won’t accept that he was anything at all like Star and Spike. He’ll have forgotten entirely how bad a kid he was.” She released his hand and started feeling around.

“Yes, but you’ve told me how he stole money from his dad and tried to burn his mom’s house down, and how he peed on her prize rosebushes every day until they died, and sawed thru the brake line in his mom’s car.” Cathy’s hand was ice cold, but stroking part of him that was already putting out heat. He lost his thought. “Things like that. He should remember.” Damn, that hand was cold.

She stroked him gently, and rolled his balls in her palm. But it didn’t seem to be having the desired effect. “Yes, well, he might remember the things he did – I think he’s still proud of them – but he’ll have justifications for them that’ll make them alright. He won’t in a million years equate them with things Star has done to him, because he won’t in a million years think he deserves it. So it’ll be like apples and oranges, and he won’t get your point at all.”

“Well, my point is that you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.” He put his arm around her shoulder as she bent over and snuggled under the covers. “Ah, that’s better,” he said, sighing as he felt the warmth of her mouth replacing her ice cube fingers.

About a week later, Cathy and Gray learned that Star had abandoned her father’s house after another blowup, and was now back living with Spike. When Cathy managed to reach her on the phone, she assured her mother that she was still off the drugs, and was full of plans for the future, mainly what to name her baby boy. She’d been to the doctor and had a sonogram to sex the baby. It seems everyone did that early in their pregnancy now. Cathy and Richard hadn’t wanted to know whether they were having a boy or a girl when they were pregnant with Star. Strangely enough, tho, they hadn’t thought of any boy’s names at the time, just a lists of girl’s names – Miranda, Alicia, Samantha. Star wasn’t on the list. The reason she ended up naming her baby Star was that Cathy’s early labor was spent walking past a picture window in the hospital, where she could see a rare conjunction of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter, and was inspired, but didn’t feel like naming her baby Planet.

Star going back to the boyfriend who got her into trouble didn’t affect Cathy the way it must have affected Richard. She was avoiding Richard at the moment. He was far too hostile and negative, and said things that only made Cathy mad, so she let him stew in it. Gray was always there, and she realized that she’d been neglecting him. She tried not to talk about her family when they were on their dog walks, and they had more sex in the mornings and evenings, sometimes even going to bed after lunch, for a nap (after someone’s orgasm).

Cathy went back to writing her food blog, zeroing in on food industry fronts and lobbyists. She wrote an article on corn-fed beef, a hideous practice, and one on foodborne illnesses in meat, all profit driven. E-coli, brought to you by Big Food. And coming soon, mad cow in a burger near you.

Working on her blog helped Cathy to channel the frustration she felt dealing with her daughter. She’d think about Star living so close to drugs and not going to meetings, and she’d get angry. This anger helped fuel her research into the food supply, and she’d get angry whenever she discovered what the food industry was doing simply for profit, and she would write impassioned and eloquent rants that got more and more hits. She was naming names and to hell with the consequences. A little voice told her that someone in the powerful food industry was going to notice and try to stop her, but she was angry, and didn’t care.

She and Gray talked about his work when they were out on dog walks. Cathy didn’t want to spout off about the food industry, because he’d heard it all before, so they discussed his work on a home-made cellphone jammer you could mount on your car. It wasn’t yet ready for testing, but Cathy wondered if maybe cutting off people’s cellphone conversations while they were driving wouldn’t make them more distracted in the short run. “I mean, I can just see them fiddling with the phone, looking at it instead of traffic, dropping it and then reaching to pick it up. You could causes accidents like that.”

“I hardly think I would be causing the accidents. They’re the ones using their cellphones instead of paying attention to the road.” Tabasco was nosing into a pile of leaves before peeing on it. “I thought of developing a device that would cut their engines off as well as their cellphones, but I figured that really might cause accidents, and so I didn’t bother.” He yanked on Tabasco’s leash, and the dog reluctantly moved on. But that was an absolutely delectable aroma, he protested. Scootie dodged a stream of pee. She’d been smelling the same part of the pile.

“What’s the range?” Scootie ran out into the road after a blowing leaf. A car narrowly missed her, and Cathy reeled in her leash. The dog was upset, and dragged along behind Cathy, her head down and twisted to the side as if she thought she could wriggle out of it. If I could just get clear of this shackle, I could get that leaf, she thought as one flew by her. Or that one. Or that one. There goes another one, why won’t you let me go get it? I have to. Please, she begged, but Cathy wasn’t paying attention to her at the moment.

“Somewhere around 500 yards. I thought about making it a thousand yards, but I didn’t want to interfere with people inside buildings. Just cars.” He yanked Tabasco away from a phone pole.

Tabasco walked directly in front of Cathy, angling to get over to a car parked at the curb. Cathy knocked at his feet to move him on. “That seems reasonable. If it works, do you think you’ll want to market it?” She thought about all the hassle of marketing, but it might be worth it. Everyone would want one.

Scootie had been running ahead and dragging behind, and managed to tangle her lead with Tabasco’s. Cathy and Gray stopped to unwind them. Both dogs looked up at them with suspicion, wondering if they were trying to shorten their leashes. Then Tabasco took off at a dead run, coming up short six feet later. “You’re still attached, idiot,” Gray observed. The dog stopped to cough, then lunged ahead again, and spent the rest of the walk pulling as hard as he could while Gray struggled to keep him under control. The last time Tabasco had pulled the leash out of Gray’s hand, he’d gone on a grand tour of the neighborhood, wandering up to the front porch filthy and smelling of unspeakably rotten substances. They’d had to hose him off. Gray now carried the leash hooked onto his wrists, but when he was like this, Tabasco pulled him off his feet with every step, and Gray achieved a controlled fall all the way down t he street.

When they got back to the house, Star’s car was there. They wondered who was driving, because Star still had a suspended license, and were running thru which of several undesirable friends might be waiting for them in the house, no doubt finding something to eat in the fridge. But it was only Star, and she was in the spare room, examining Cathy’s computer and sewing equipment that had taken the place of her stuffed animals and dirty clothes.

“Hello, baby,” Cathy said, pleased to see her. She came up to give her a big hug, which Star only barely returned. She seemed distracted.

“I’m moving back in,” she announced.

“Oh?” Cathy was surprised to hear it. “You said you wouldn’t live with me again,” she reminded her. “You can’t stand my rules and you hate Gray?”

Star waved it aside, then she started to cry. Cathy went up and hugged her, and this time Star accepted the comfort. It felt good to wrap her arms around her daughter, like it had when she was small and liked to cuddle. She felt so small in her arms. So thin. All that weight she’d lost when she was doing coke. “What’s the matter, baby?”

“I violated my probation, Mom,” she wailed. “I can’t go back. They’ll put me back in jail, and now that I’m pregnant, they’ll take my baby.”

“What? What happened?” But Cathy had to wait for some time for an answer, because Star started sobbing and wouldn’t say anything else.

It wasn’t Spike’s fault; he was clean and hadn’t done any drugs since they got arrested. But she was out with a friend of a friend, who was smoking a joint, and even tho she didn’t have any, the smoke got into her system, and the next time she went to probation she tested positive for marijuana. There was going to be a revocation hearing next week, and she’d been told by her lawyer that she was most likely going to be going back to jail for the remainder of her probationary period, which would be after the baby was born. And since the baby would be born in jail, Family Services would take it, and she’d never see her baby again.

“I just can’t face that, Mom. The only thing I can do is to run away until I’ve had my baby.” She sat on the bed wiping her tears. “I can’t let them take him. I don’t care what happens to me.”

Cathy felt sick. She believed Star’s tale of accidental exposure to drugs, and didn’t question the judgment of the lawyer, and the thought of her grandchild being placed in a foster home or adopted into a strange family made her stomach twist up. She had no doubt that the judge could give her baby away if he felt like it. She’d heard Family Services horror stories before, and was always appalled by the harsh judgments and abuses of power. She knew what she had to do.

“Of course you can stay here,” she said. “We’ll hide you.” She had no idea what this would entail, but she felt sure she could hide her daughter until after she’d had her baby in…seven months. It felt a little unrealistic, but she was determined. She left Star resting on the bed, hoping she would fall asleep and get a good nap, and went downstairs to talk to Gray about it.

He was at his woodworking table, building a complicated looking model with arms and extensions Cathy couldn’t figure out. He wasn’t as clouded with concern as Cathy was, and saw all sorts of difficulties. “Do you mean to hide her from the world until after she’s had her baby?”

She did, but coming from Gray’s mouth it sounded unrealistic. “Well, I thought she could just stay in her room and not go out and not answer the phone. She does that anyway.”

“Yes, but we have people coming in and out. They’ll see her. And if the wrong people see her, it’ll be all over.”

“She can hide when someone comes. We can block off the bedroom door and put up drapes on all the windows. We can say we’re renovating the house and not let anyone in.”

“She’s going to forget why she’s hiding, and will end up feeling trapped and punished, and start behaving irrationally.” It seemed clear enough to Gray that Star would revert to the spoiled daughter the moment she felt she was safe.

“She won’t forget. It’s all she thinks about. She is trying t o protect her baby, and a woman will do anything when she’s protecting her baby.”

“Until she forgets. What happens when she gets bored? What happens when she wants to go shopping? How is she supposed to see the doctor?” He didn’t try to argue her out of her plan, but he could warn her of the dangers. “If they find her, they can charge you with harboring a fugitive, you know.”

But Cathy wasn’t swayed. “We’ll find a way,” she insisted. She felt irrationally strong, as if her faith would be enough to move mountains, or at least keep the law at bay. “Maybe, instead of putting her in the spare room, we can make a room in the attic for her, or move some of your stuff and put her down here.” She looked around at his workshop. “Maybe not. But the attic will work. We’ll have to get an air conditioner when it gets to be spring. We can use the portable oil-filled radiator up there now.”

Gray rolled his eyes. They’d been talking about cleaning and organizing the attic for several years, and had never gotten around to it because the attic was jammed with fifty years and more of junk, all of which needed to be sorted thru, put into piles, and either put in some corner to go to one of the children, or carted off to be donated, or tossed into the trash. It would take them all winter to clean out the attic, whenever they did get around to it. Cathy was apparently thinking about accomplishing it in a couple of days.

“How are you going to keep her from contacting her friends or going out wandering the streets, like she did last time, remember when she used to stay out all night?”

“It’s different now. She’s pregnant, and there’s jail hanging over her head. She’ll behave herself. And we’ll just keep the phone away from her so she won’t be tempted. If it’s not next to her bed, she won’t answer it. They’re all drug friends, anyway, and she’s sworn them off since she got out of rehab.”

“Is that why she tested positive?”

Cathy was doubtful. “I’m not sure about that. She said it was an accident, and that she was with strangers. Maybe everywhere she goes they’re smoking pot.”

Gray turned back to his work. “I’ll see what I can do to help out,” he said, and Cathy went back upstairs, satisfied, tho she wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.

go to tomorrow’s writing