ONE

Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

2063. May 25^th.

As the Geyr ship crashed in China, Lucy Davis, lying in the plain white bed at Mercy First Hospital in Base City, screamed in pain as she gave birth to her first child, a daughter. The three ‘greenies’ had stayed just long enough to make sure that Lucy’s baby, soon to be named Gretchen, would be safely born. The others of their race would have been very glad to hear their good report.

May 26^th.

The next morning, Marshall Davis, Lucy’s husband, and Gretchen’s dad came sneaking into the hospital room. Seeing his black-haired, slightly overweight wife lying peacefully asleep reminded him again of how much he loved her. He kissed her on the forehead, his light brown hair and mustache brushing her skin.

“You stink,” Lucy said, reaching up and cupping his cheek in her hand. “And you need to shave.”

Marshall laughed. He knew he needed to take care of his whisker fuzz, but, “I stink, huh?” he asked, not sure if she was joking. “Like what? Sweat?”

“Weed.”

“Oh,” he laughed. He pulled a handful of his shirt up to his nose and sniffed it. Yeah, she was right. He wondered if anyone else had noticed it on him.

“I haven’t had any since I came in here,” she complained.

“Too bad for you,” he teased.

“Won’t even let me have a cigarette.”

Marshall laughed again at her misfortune. After a moment, he sighed and said, “Well, I guess you did it without me, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess I did.”

“Listen, Babe; I’m real sorry I wasn’t here.”

“I know. It’s not your fault. How was it up there?”

“Cold. I wish it weren’t so far away. The Canucks don’t even have automated roads yet! Gotta go where the work is though.”

“Yeah.”

“Otherwise, how are we gonna take care of the baby?”

“\ Have you seen her yet?”

“Oh. Yeah! I stopped in the Incubation Room for a minute before I came in here! She’s great, Lu! Her sparkly, little green eyes. You did a great job!”

May 27^th.

Marshall took Lucy and baby Gretchen home the next day. The little house they rented was only a couple of miles from downtown. Built 30 years ago during the founding of Base City, the house had seen better days. It wasn’t that it was old. It simply hadn’t been taken care of very well. The houses in Base City had been built quickly and sold cheaply because of the need for housing after the Disaster, and economic need had kept most of the houses around downtown cheap. Now, the paint was peeling off, the wood of the fence was rotting where it stood, and year-old dust and grime covered the porch.

Still, for Marshall and Lucy, and now Gretchen, it was home. Smiling, Marshall stopped the truck and told Lucy to wait where she was while he went around and opened the passenger door for her. She tried to step out, but he stopped her again. “I got ya,” he said. And cradling her in his arms, he picked her up off the seat and walked up the front steps to the house.

He opened the screen door and kept it propped open with his foot. Then he turned back to the door and cursed. “Blast it. My keys are in my pocket.” Lucy hung onto his neck while he held her up with one hand and fished for his keys with the other.

Keys in hand, Marshall put his arm back under her legs and turned sideways to get at the door. As he turned, though, he banged Lucy’s head on the screen door. “Ow!” Lucy laughed, rubbing her head.

“Sorry,” Marshall sighed. This wasn’t turning out to be as romantic as he planned. “You all right?”

“Yes,” Lucy chuckled, holding the screen door open behind her.

Marshall opened the finally, and a faint smell of ammonia wafted out. Marshall and Lucy didn’t have any cats, but neither could they rid the house of the previous renters’ pet odor. Ignoring the smell, Marshall carried Lucy through the doorway and into the living room. Gently setting her down on the couch, he kissed her on the forehead and went back out to the truck to get Gretchen.

December 5th.

Five months later, Marshall’s pick-up truck rolled to a stop in front of God’s Love Christian Church. Fresh snow covered the landscape, but the parking lot was clear. “I hate coming here,” he sighed. Lucy sat beside him on the seat with Gretchen in her lap.

“I know,” Lucy answered, “but it’s free food.”

Marshall sighed again as he opened his door.

As they walked down the stairs to the church basement, a new smiling face greeted them. “Hi! Are you here for lunch?” the young man asked.

Marshall nodded.

“Pastor not here today?” Lu asked. It was usually the pastor who greeted people as they came in.

“Oh, no. Pastor Dybek isn’t here anymore. I’m Frank, Frank Pruesser, children and youth minister.” Frank shook Lucy’s hand and then Marshall’s as they introduced themselves. “And who is this?” Frank asked, directing his gaze to the baby in Lucy’s arms.

“This is Gretchen,” Lucy replied. “Say ‘hi,’ Gretchen,” she said as she held Gretchen’s hand up and made it wave.

Frank laughed and took the little girl’s hand in his to shake it. “Well, it’s nice to meet all of you,” he said. “Go ahead and have a seat wherever you like and we’ll start serving in a few minutes.”

As Marshall, Lu, and Gretchen went to sit at one of the long tables and began pulling their coats off, they heard an elderly gentlemen calling. “Frank, Mr. Greene needs help getting down the stairs!” And Frank was off.

After everyone finished their sloppy joes and potato chips and were waiting to see if there would be seconds, Frank got up on the platform next to the tables and turned on a microphone. “Hey, I want to thank everyone for coming today. I hope you all had a good lunch. We’re going to start something new today. I know it’s hard for all of you to get here on Sunday mornings – a lot of you have to work or are busy – so we’re going to start an informal worship service here. There’s dessert over at the counter, so I’ll give you a minute or two to get that, and we’ll get started.”

“A church service?” Marshall whispered to Lucy.

“Yeah. I guess so,” she whispered back.

“Well…I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“I know. We can go,” Lucy said as she began bundling Gretchen back up.

“C’mon!” Marshall urged.

“I’m coming,” Lucy hissed, standing up.

“Leaving?” Frank asked behind them.

Lucy whirled around, wide-eyed as if the pastor had caught her doing something wrong. “Oh. Yeah. He’s got to work,” she sputtered, pointing to Marshall behind her. “Thanks for lunch though.”

“Okay,” Frank smiled. “See you next week.”

Back in the truck. “What time do you need to meet the guys?” Lucy asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Two,” Marshall answered, pulling out his own pack of Marlboros. “But I’m pretty much ready. I just gotta grab my stuff and go.”

Lu nodded. “Canada again?”

“Yeah. Hopefully get that store done this week.”

“Okay. I gotta stop by Saint Boniface’s on the way home, then.”

“What?” Marshall exclaimed.

“What? They said I could go there once a month. They give me like two full bags of groceries.”

“C’mon, Lu! I’m making like eighteen dollars an hour now!”

“I know!”

“Construction’s a good job! We’ve been getting a lot of work lately!”

“I know, Marsh! But it’s still not enough! I’m making minimum wage at the grocery, and it’s only part-time! What do you want me to do?”

Marshall let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine!” Then, after a moment of riding in silence, he said, “I’ve gotta stop by the drive-thru. I need to get some smokes.”

“Oh! Yeah! Me, too!”

“And I’m gonna take some beer up for the guys and me.”

“Okay.”

“Did you pay the cell phone bill? I don’t want to be stuck up there all week with no phone and no net.”

“Yeah, I paid it. Don’t worry.”

December 12^th.

A week later, Gretchen was strapped into her carrier seat, sitting happily on the kitchen counter where Lucy was busy stirring up a pan of cornbread mix. The canned stew was already heating on the stove. Marshall came in from the living room, the football game on TV still blaring. “Smells good,” he said, coming up behind Lucy and wrapping his arms around her waist. He kissed her on the side of her neck and then released his hold, heading for the fridge. “Steeds just scored,” he told her. “Looks like Base City is going all the way this year, eh?”

“Prob’ly,” Lucy answered agreeably but without caring either way. She brought the pan of cornbread batter over to the oven as Marshall pulled another beer out of the refrigerator. Thud! Lucy and Marshall’s hearts leaped into their throats as they spun around.

“Lu!” Marshall exclaimed, rushing past her.

Lucy understood what had happened. Gretchen’s carrier seat was laying facedown on the floor and Gretchen, unseen, wasn’t making any noise.

“Gretchen!” Lucy cried, as Marshall lifted the carrier seat right-side up. Gretchen, still strapped into her chair, was perfectly fine, though her emerald green eyes were a little wider than normal. “Oh!” Lucy breathed in relief.

“How did that happen?” Marshall wondered.

May 27^th.

About six months later, it was the weekend after Gretchen’s first birthday. Lucy’s family would be coming over for the party soon. Unfortunately, none of Marshall’s family would be able to come; most of them lived in Florida.

Marshall was out picking up the pizza and cake they had ordered, and Lucy was busy cleaning the house and spraying air freshener to cover up the smell of cat pee. It always made her nervous when her family came over, especially her dad and Nanna. She wanted to make a good impression on them. She wanted them to be proud of her and think that she was doing okay for herself. She didn’t care what her brothers thought, but that was because they had had their share of trouble and weren’t doing any better than she was.

Marshall was back twenty minutes later, and ten minutes after that, the doorbell rang. It was her parents and Nanna. “Hi!” Lucy exclaimed as she opened the door and hugged them.

Marshall came up behind her. He hugged the two ladies and shook his father-in-law’s hand. “How we doing?” he asked.

“Good, good,” Lucy’s father, Will, answered.

“Josh and Ryan coming?” Lucy asked.

“They should be along,” her mother, Tammy, answered. “I called them both this morning and told them to be here. Now, where’s that grand-baby?”

Lucy’s father was already scooping Gretchen up out the playpen in the corner. “Come here, green eyes. Gonna have to get this little girl’s hair cut pretty soon,” he observed.

Gretchen’s hair was getting long. It was deep red and was starting to curl around her shoulders.

“Marsh says he wants to keep it long,” Lucy answered. “He says it has to be long enough to fall into the toilet before we cut it.”

Marshall, a bit embarrassed, said, “I figure a little girl’s supposed to have long hair.”

“That’s fine,” Will said, an understanding smile on his face.

“Now, William,” Tammy demanded, “you hand that baby over right now and go get the presents out of the car.”

Will handed Gretchen off to Nanna rather than to his wife as she wanted and headed out the door. When he came back in, he had Josh, Ryan, and each of their girlfriends in tow.

The family knew Katie, Ryan’s girlfriend, but the girl Josh was with was new. “This is Kelly,” Josh said. “We just got engaged.”

They all nodded out of politeness, but no one took the news seriously. They knew Josh would have another new girlfriend the next time they saw him.

When everyone had sat down, Lucy and Marshall brought the food out of the kitchen and set it on the round dining room table for everyone to help themselves. They all talked for a while and then Marshall turned the TV on to the football game.

Nanna wasn’t interested in football, so she asked, “Lucy, are you still working at the grocery store?”

“Um…Yeah!”

Nanna nodded. “And what about Marshall? Is his job okay?”

Marshall heard the question over the game but was content to let Lucy answer. “Oh. Well, his company’s a little slow right now.” In truth, business for Marshall’s company was as slow as it could get. He hadn’t gone out on a job for months now.

Nanna nodded again and let the conversation drop.

When Lucy and Marshall went to get the ice cream cake out of the kitchen, Nanna excused herself. Lucy thought she was going to the bathroom.

When Lucy went into her bedroom later that night, she found a check from Nanna on her bed for five thousand dollars.

December 24^th.

About seven months later, Marshall smiled as he removed the cigaretted from this mouth and handed Gretchen her present. “Happy Holidays, honey!”

The one and a half-year-old grinned, her cheeks dimpling and her emerald eyes flashing as she took the box and vigorously began shaking it. As she tore into the wrapping, Lucy corrected her husband. “It’s Christmas, not ‘Holidays.’”

“Christmas, Holidays, what’s the difference?” Marshall said, shrugging off his wife’s rebuke.

“It does matter! You think Jesus doesn’t care what you call it?”

“Lu,” Marshall said, “you haven’t been to church – for church – since I’ve known you.”

“No, but I always used to go with Nanna, and I at least know what you’re supposed to call it.”

“Okay,” Marshall sighed, tiring of the conversation. “It’s Christmas.” Whatever will make you happy. “You hear that, honey?” Marshall asked Gretchen. “It’s Christmas.”

But Gretchen couldn’t care less. She was busy picking at the wrapping paper.

“Here,” Marshall said, reaching over and taking the gift. He pulled a piece of the paper off, ready to hand the present back. “But before I give it back to you, we have another surprise for you.” Then, turning to Lucy, he asked, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

Marshall had a mischievous twinkle in his eye that made Lucy curious. She had no idea what he was talking about. “Go ahead,” she said, throwing up her hands in confusion. She thought they had only bought Gretchen one present.

Marshall’s smile grew wider and wider until he finally broke the news. “You’re going to have a little brother!”

Lucy’s eyes suddenly became very large. “Marshall!” she gasped.

“What?” Marshall laughed. “I thought she’d be excited!”

But Lucy pushed herself up off the couch and stormed down the hallway. Marshall groaned and immediately followed her into the bedroom while Gretchen went to the present he had dropped.

“What?” Marshall asked again.

“Marshall…” Lucy began, tears welling up in her eyes, “how did you know? You weren’t supposed to find out yet.”

“What? Why? I found the…pregnancy test thing in the trash can. Two blue lines mean ‘boy,’ right?”

Lucy exhaled. “Yes, it means ‘boy,’ but…”

“But what?”

“But…well…I wasn’t sure we were going to keep it!”

“What do you mean we’re not gonna keep it?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you!”

“What do you mean we’re not gonna keep it?”

“Marshall, we don’t have any money! You haven’t worked all year!”

Marshall couldn’t say she was wrong, so he just stood there.

After a moment, Lucy sighed, slumped down on the bed and pulled out another cigarette. Marshall came and sat beside her. “Babe, listen, we’ll make it work. I’ll get a job. I promise. But it’s a boy! You know? How great is that? We’re going to have a boy!”

December 31^st.

A week later, Marshall came walking out of the bedroom. He was wearing black slacks, black non-slip shoes, a red t-shirt, and a black hat that proudly displayed the McDonald’s glorious golden arches.

“Do you want me to pack you something to eat?” Lucy asked.

Marshall did not respond. Instead, he stood there staring. Lucy knew he wasn’t excited about his new job, but he was the one who wanted to keep the baby, right? He was the one who wanted a boy.

Finally, Marshall sighed and said, “No, I’ll get something there. The manager said we get half off once a day.”

“Okay, Babe. I love you.” Lucy kissed him on the cheek.

“Love you too.” Marshall grabbed his coat and rubbed Gretchen’s curly head of hair as he opened the door. “I’ll be back in time for you to go to work,” he assured her.

“‘Kay,” Lu said.

“Sha-shas!” Gretchen exclaimed, recognizing her father’s uniform.

Smiling and rolling his eyes at Gretchen’s baby word for French fries, Marshall closed the door and was gone.

2065. January 2^nd.

Two days later, Marshall and Lucy rolled out of bed. Coming down the hall – Marshall in his boxers and Lucy in a long t-shirt and underwear, cigarettes blazing – they found Gretchen sitting in front of the television with a box of Lucky Charms in her lap. She was reaching in for another handful when she saw them. She dropped the box and ran clumsily toward them.

Marshall bent down and caught her up, embracing her. Lucy ran her fingers through her daughter’s long, crimson hair. “Hi, sweetie,” she smiled.

With Gretchen cradled in his arm, Marshall walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed himself a beer. “You wanna go take a look at that car with me?” he asked the little girl. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Marshall knew that his part-time job at McDonald’s wasn’t going to bring in a lot of cash, or taking too much of his time, so he had offered to fix up their landlord’s car for some money.

Now, the car was sitting in his garage. It was an old car, an antique bought at auction. It wasn’t street-legal in most places anymore since the automation and the satellite navigation system had gone up, but it wouldn’t have run, anyway. That was why Mr. Gales had hired Marshall to restore it. He paid Marshall half of the money upfront with the other half due when it was finished. The whole job was for a total of five thousand dollars with Mr. Gales paying for all the parts and tools Marshall needed. It was a big job, but Marshall said he could do it. He always was good with his hands and at seeing how things worked. Of course, the first thing Marshall and Lucy did after cashing Mr. Gales’ check was go to the bar.

Marshall carried Gretchen outside and was surprised by how warm it was. Even though it was still the first week of January, Marshall felt as if he could stay out here all day without ever needing so much as a jacket. It was a great day to start his new project.

Marshall set Gretchen down and lifted the garage door. There it was: a beat-up, rusted-out, nineteen sixty-four Chevy El Camino. He walked to the driver’s side door and opened it. Sitting down in the seat, he turned the wheel back and forth. “You see that Gretchen? The car’s a hundred years old!” When Gretchen didn’t respond, Marshall took a long slug of his beer. Then, shaking the can and realizing it was empty, he stood back up. Leaving the car door open, he said, “I’ll be right back, pumpkin. You stay here, a’right?”

But Gretchen did not stay.

When Marshall came back out the front door, he saw the El Camino rolling forward across the street in front of the house and starting down the alley on the other side. A quick look into the garage and around the yard told him that Gretchen must be in the car. He couldn’t see her the car because she was so short. Her head didn’t reach over the back of the seat.

Hurriedly setting his beer down on the porch railing, Marshall ran after the car. It wasn’t on – couldn’t be on – but it was picking up speed. He didn’t know how, but Gretchen must have climbed inside the car and shifted the car into neutral. After that, the weight of the car, combined with the downward sloping driveway, had set in motion. Now, if Marshall didn’t do something, the car was going to keep on rolling, right into the busy street at the end of the alley.

The car was building momentum, and it already had a head-start on Marshall. Before he could even begin to catch up with it, the car rolled through the alley and into the main street. Marshall, knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do now, stopped and braced himself for the crunch he knew was coming.

But there was no crunch. Miraculously, the car kept rolling, right across all four lanes of traffic and into the yard across the street.

No, not miraculously. Marshall ran the rest of the length of the alley and into the street. A line of cars on either side of him was sitting there, stopped dead. Of course! He should have remembered. Even though the old El Camino wasn’t road-worthy, the new satellite system had still detected it. Any obstruction entering the roadway would automatically cause the satellite to send a signal to all of the cars, stopping them in their tracks.

All of the drivers were honking at him to get out of the way. A couple of them had even rolled down their windows and were yelling at him, but he didn’t care. He raced across the street and opened the car door. There was Gretchen, sitting in the driver’s seat with a wide, excited grin dimpling her cheeks.

May 2^nd

Marshall had been working at McDonald’s for over four months now, and he hated every minute of it. It was always, rush, rush, rush, customer after customer. It wouldn’t be so bad if Marshall could take his time with things, but if he tried to slow down once in a while, the managers would get even more demanding. The General Manager was the worst. She was an old, cranky woman who seemingly had an inherent distaste for Marshall. She was always giving him the worst jobs. Today, when he went in, the air conditioning was on the fritz, so the whole kitchen area was as hot and humid as could be, and she had given him all the cleaning jobs. He had to wash the breakfast dishes, then clean the bathrooms, then change the grease in the fryers and rinse them out, and now he had to empty the grease traps on the grill.

Sweat dripping off his forehead, he poured out the day’s half-solidified leftover grease and meat debris. As it slop into the bucket, he decided that he had had enough. Without saying a word, he set the grease trap down on the ground, pulled off his sanitary gloves, and walked out the back door.

“Hey! What are you doing home so early?” Lucy asked when Marshall walked in the front door.

Marshall didn’t answer but instead headed straight for the bedroom.

“Marsh?” Lucy asked, following him.

He peeled his shirt off and said, “I quit.” Lucy heard a hint of anger or maybe just defiance in his voice.

“Marshall!” Lucy whined. “Why?”

“Because,” he started as he took his pants off, “I don’t need to do that. I oughta be doing construction.”

“Marshall, we need the money! What about the baby?”

“Don’t worry about it, Lu. I’ll get another job. But I can’t take her crap anymore.”

August 16^th.

Four and a half months later, the Davises – Marshall, Gretchen, and Lu large with child – were getting used to their new federally-funded apartment. At the end of last month, their landlord, Mr. Gales, realized two things. One was that Marshall still hadn’t found another job and so his chances of collecting all the rent money they owed him were quickly diminishing. Two, Marshall, in all likelihood, was never going to finish the El Camino. He hadn’t made any progress on it in months. So, reluctantly, Mr. Gales had asked them to leave.

Now, the family was in a flurry of activity. Two-year-old, curly-haired Gretchen was pulling on her mom’s hand as Lucy struggled to push herself up off the couch. Marshall was running around gathering a change of clothes and a hygienical bag for Lucy while intermittently searching for the new pack of cigarettes he could have sworn he had somewhere.

Three hours later, Lucy let out a final scream before falling back, panting on her already sweaty pillow. Doctor Rebecca Mayett at Mercy First Hospital had finally succeeded in pulling out from under Lucy’s sheet a screaming, goo-covered newborn. When she held the baby up for the parents to see, Marshall and Lucy just stared.

Marshall, who was standing next to Lucy’s bed, holding her hand, squinted at the newborn, trying to get a better look. His conclusion didn’t change, though, so he went ahead and said what he and Lucy were both thinking. “It’s a girl!”

“Yes, it is!” Doctor Mayett confirmed. “Congratulations!”

“Why in’nit it a boy?” Marshall protested. “The pregnancy test said it was gonna be a boy!”

Doctor Mayett, surprised by the question, squinted back at him. “What pregnancy test? One done here at the hospital?”

“No,” Marshall said, “one of those home deals.”

“A home pregnancy test?” Doctor Mayett clarified.

Marshall nodded emphatically. “Yeah. Two blue lines.”

“Mr. Davis,” the doctor said, handing the baby off to a nurse, “home pregnancy tests, while good for initial indicators, are not always one hundred percent accurate. Did you bring her in for any prenatal care?”

“Any what?” Marshall asked.

“Ultrasounds, DNA screenings…”

“We didn’t have any money,” Marshall explained. “And what’s with her face?”

“Well,” Doctor Mayett began gently, “she probably has Down’s Syndrome. We’ll want to do some tests to make sure, but she does have the characteristic features. You see that her eyes are slightly slanted, she has a slightly flattened nose and mouth, and she’s a little smaller height-wise and a little more broad than is usually typical of full-term newborns.”

“Why?” Marshall demanded. He was getting angry now. First, the baby girl wasn’t the boy he was expecting, and now she was ‘retarded.’

“Why?” Doctor Mayett repeated. She was getting a little irritated herself. “Why what?”

“Why…? How did it happen? What…what causes something like this?”

“Oh.” The Doctor nodded and then took a moment to think. She wasn’t sure how much information Marshall wanted. She figured that he probably wouldn’t understand a very technical answer. “Well…bad luck mostly. The genes didn’t come out right. They got switched around and confused in the process. I’m sorry, but if you had come in earlier, during the pregnancy,” she stressed that last part, “we could have tested her for you. Maybe then…” But the doctor stopped short, cleared her throat, and let what she was about to say trail off.

Lucy and Marshall both knew what she was thinking, though, because they were thinking the same thing: Lucy had been right not to want to keep the baby. They should have had an abortion.

September 15^th.

One month later. “Kyeh! Kyeh! Kyeh!”

Gretchen looked up at the crib, annoyed. She knew that sound was the wind-up, the irritating little noise that her sister, baby Jenny, always made before launching into a full-blown cry-fest.

A second later, Jenny wailing at the top of her lungs.

Every time Jenny started crying, day or night, Gretchen had to hear it. She had a little sister now, a baby, that she had to share her room with.

Gretchen got up off the floor, dropped the naked, dirty, hair-tangled Barbie doll she was playing with and stomped to the bedroom door. “Mom!” she called. “Baby crying!”

“I know!” Lucy shot back.

A couple of minutes later, Lucy came trudging down the hall with a warm baby bottle and an already used spit rag in her hand.

“When Daddy coming home?” Gretchen asked as Lucy lifted the blonde, blue-eyed, crying baby out of her crib.

“I don’t know. He’s on a job.” It was a lie she had told the little girl over and over again this past month. She knew, of course, that Marshall was not ‘on a job.’ The truth was that she hadn’t seen Marshall since the night they brought Jenny home. Having a ‘retarded’ daughter had been too much for him. But why tell Gretchen that? She wanted to, wanted to tell the girl what a sleaze-ball her dad was, but, at the same time, she also knew that it wouldn’t do Gretchen any good to hear it.

“I want Daddy!” Gretchen whined.

“I know! What do you want me to do about it?” Lucy snapped. “I can’t make him come back.”

Frustrated, Gretchen left the room and headed for the TV. As she walked into the living room, she heard someone knocking on the front door. She opened it and then exclaimed, “Daddy!”

“Hey, little girl!” he greeted. He bent down to hug her, and she noticed that he had something in his hand. It was a heart-shaped box of chocolates and a single, red rose.

Gretchen reached for them, but Marshall drew back his hand. “No, no, those are for your mom.” Then he drew his other hand back from around her and said, “This one’s for you.” He held out a small, pink, stuffed dog.

She took it, and he lifted her onto his shoulders. Then he made his way down the hallway to the girls’ bedroom.

“Hey,” Marshall said sheepishly, barely poking his head into the room. Gretchen, her head on top of his, beamed.

Lucy looked over and glared at him. She slowly lowered Jenny back down into her crib and then walked out past him toward her bedroom.

Marshall sighed and picked Gretchen off of his shoulders. He set her down and followed Lucy into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

They were in there for a long time. When they finally came out, they looked really tired, but also happy. They both had a little spot of dried blood in the crook of one of their elbows, but Gretchen didn’t notice that. Daddy was home.

2066. January 2^nd.

Three and a half months later. Noon. The Davises, directed by an attendant, pulled in to the parking lot of Reid Funeral Home.

Lucy’s Nanna had died three days ago from a heart attack. It was cold out, which was good because Lucy and Marshall had to wear long sleeves to hide the needle marks in their arms from their growing Cruise habit. Grandma wouldn’t have liked that. Neither would most of the rest of the family.

The service was nice. It was quiet and subdued, like Grandma had been.

During the family luncheon afterward, Lucy’s Uncle Pete came up to her and handed her an envelope. “Nanna wanted you to have this,” he said.

Lucy looked down at the envelope in her hand. She could feel something sliding around inside it. “What is it?” she asked, looking up again. But Uncle Pete was already walking away.

“What is it?” Marshall asked.

Jenny began fussing in her carrier seat, and Lucy turned to quiet her.

So did Gretchen. Leaving her own chair, she came over between Lucy and Marshall’s, where Jenny’s carrier was, and said, “Don’t cry, Jenny.”

Letting big sister deal with Jenny, Lucy began opening the envelope. She soon pulled out a set of three identical keys and a piece of paper.

“It’s her house!” Marshall exclaimed.

Lucy nodded, but couldn’t say anything. Nanna had always been good to her, but this was too much. Lucy wanted to cry, but she was too overwhelmed even to do that.

“Lu, this is awesome!” Marshall exulted. “Do you know how much we need this?”

June 23^rd.

Almost six months later. It seemed like three-year-old Gretchen had been listening to Jenny cry for half the morning already and her parents still weren’t getting up. She had tried going into their room and shaking them a couple of times, but neither one of them had so much as stirred. So now, Gretchen had decided to take matters – Jenny – into her own hands.

Going into her and Jenny’s bedroom, Gretchen pushed her little orange and blue plastic slide over to the crib and climbed up over the rails. After a couple of false starts as Gretchen decided the best way to get a hold of Jenny, she finally began lifting her sister up.

She had Jenny’s feet hanging out over the rails and was holding her hands to lower her onto the slide when Lucy rushed into the room. “I’m up! I’m up! I’ll get ‘er!”

October 30^th.

Four months later, Gretchen squealed, “Kitty!” Outside, in the early morning light, a little gray and white cat popped awake but stayed completely frozen in place. It had nestled on a table behind a pile of junk on the Davis’ front porch during the night. It thought that the spot would be a good place to take refuge from the cold. It had not expected Gretchen to spy it out the living room window when she woke up the next morning.

The red-haired three-and-a-half-year-old struggled with the window for a moment before she finally succeeded in pushing it up. The cat, too tired and cold and hungry to move, simply lied there as Gretchen reached out and scooped it up under its front two legs to pull it inside.

Holding the cat with one hand and petting it with the other, Gretchen carried the cat over to the couch and placed it cat firmly in her lap. “Soft kitty,” she congratulated the feline.

The cat, happy to accept the little girl’s affection and the warmth of the house, settled down and began to purr. Slowly, its eyes closed.

Before it could fall asleep, though, an idea popped into Gretchen’s mind. “Hungry, kitty?” she asked. And since the cat didn’t answer, Gretchen decided that it probably was. So she got up, forcing the cat to jump down, and walked to the kitchen.

The cat followed and let out a loud and pitiful meow as Gretchen popped and peeled the lid off of a can of tuna. She set the whole can down on the floor and watched as the cat hungrily devoured the chunked fish.

While the cat was still licking the can, Gretchen heard her parents’ bedroom door open. Leaving the cat there with the tuna, Gretchen turned and ran through the living room and down the hall, excited to tell Marshall and Lucy the good news of her find.

She met Lucy halfway down the hall. She was walking sleepily toward the bathroom. “Mom! Mom! Guess what?” Gretchen’s face was beaming, her green eyes shining and her cheeks dimpling from the pride of her find.

“Ohhh,” Lucy groaned. “Not now. Mommy’s gotta use the bathroom.” Lucy gently pushed Gretchen aside and closed the bathroom door.

Undeterred, Gretchen shouted through the door. “Mom! I found a cat!”

“Leave it outside!” Lucy yelled back groggily.

“But…”

Then, Marshall came storming out of the room. “Blast it, Gretchen! Come ‘ere!”

Gretchen could tell that her dad was mad, but couldn’t tell why. Was it because she had been yelling when he was trying to sleep? She had gotten in trouble for that before.

Angrily, Marshall grabbed her by the shoulders and, lifting her up to eye level, pushed her back up against the wall. He put his face right up to hers and started yelling. “Did you bring that cat in here? Huh? Did you?” Some of his spit landed on Gretchen’s face, and she started to cry. Then he brought her back down, turned her over, and started beating her behind over and over, hard.

The bathroom door flew open, and Lucy stepped out, crying and flailing her arms at her husband. “Marshall! Stop it!” she screeched. “What are you doing?”

Jenny began crying in her room as Marshall, panting, quickly turned from Gretchen and put his hands up over his face to shield himself from his wife’s random blows. “Stop it!” he yelled. “She let a cat in here! It peed on the bed! Right on the blasted pillow!”

Then, Gretchen, curled up on the ground, realized what had happened. When she had been yelling at her mom through the door, the cat slinked past her into her parents’ bedroom.

“That’s no reason to beat her like that, you jerk!” Lucy cried. She was still hitting him, but more slowly now. “She’s just a kid! Blast! She’s just a kid! You’re lucky I don’t call LandForce on you! I swear…”

But Marshall had turned and walked back into the bedroom. Lucy followed and found him sitting on the bed, the bed the stray cat had peed on. He was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Lucy glared at him. “Don’t tell me! Tell her!” Lucy commanded, pointing back down the hall.

A minute later, Marshall stood up, took a deep breath, pulled a cigarette out of the pack on his dresser, lit it, sucked in, and started down the hall.

Gretchen was still there on the floor where he had left her. Her tears had stopped, but her eyes were still wet. Marshall bent down and gently scooped her up. He cradled her in his arms and pulled her close to his chest, hugging her. Brushing her tangled, red curls out of her face, he kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’m sorry. Daddy shouldn’t have got so mad, okay? Tell you what; you can keep the cat. How does that sound?”

November 12^th.

Two weeks later, Gretchen exclaimed, “Uh-oh, Kitty! Tornado!” And with that, Gretchen scooped up the cat and began spinning. Kitty, held out at arm’s length, did not try to move. Unfortunately, this had become one of Gretchen’s favorite games lately, ever since her last viewing of The Wizard of Oz.

Gretchen spun and spun and spun, faster and faster, until she fell.

Kitty sprang out of her hands and Gretchen hit the floor with a thud. Pain shot through the little girl’s arm and back.

“Now what?” Marshall said, hearing the noise of Gretchen’s fall and getting up from his living-room chair.

But before he could call out to her, there was a knock at the door and Marshall, suddenly panicking, reached back to the chair and hit the off button for the TV on the remote.

“Who is it?” Lucy whispered. She was sitting on the floor, playing with Jenny.

“I don’t know!” Marshall hissed, getting out of his chair. “Just keep her quiet!”

Lucy pulled Jenny closer to her and cupped her hand over the girl’s mouth as Marshall tiptoed toward the door. Both of them were hoping that Gretchen would stay quiet in her bedroom.

A second after Marshall’s eye lined up with the peephole, he jerked back. “Oh, crap!” The door crashed in and caught Marshall hard in the face as pieces of the door’s shattered frame flew into the room.

Gretchen heard the noise from her room and froze in place, hurt from her fall, but now too scared to come out.

Jenny, however, started crying as Nick Santori, the man who had kicked the door in, and Bobby Fraley walked in. When she saw who it was, Lucy stood up and started shouting at them. “Get out of my house! Get out!”

Ignoring her, Bobby grabbed Marshall by his shirt collar. Marshall was gingerly holding his nose as blood and tears into his mustache. “Where’s the money?” Bobby demanded.

“What money?” Marshall asked, his voice muffled.

“Don’t play dumb with me!” Bobby shouted, letting go of Marshall’s shirt with one hand long enough to smack Marshall on the side of his head. “We paid you to distribute for us. A month ago. Now. either you’ve got the money, or you’ve still got the Cruise! So. which is it?”

“I don’t have it!” Marshall protested, all the while wriggling to get free of Bobby’s grip. Marshall had intended to sell the Cruise. Working as a ‘distributor’ had sounded like a good way to earn some fast money. But when it came down to it, he had been too afraid of getting caught to go out and sell.

Bobby reeled him in close and smacked him on the side of the head again. “What are you saying? Huh? You trying to cheat us? Is that it? ‘Cause that ain’t a good idea! Believe me!”

Lucy, who had meanwhile continued screeching for the men to leave, finally ran up to Bobby and threw her whole weight, all one hundred and fifty-two pounds of it, into him. Bobby fell back a couple of steps, releasing his hold on Marshall.

“You trash!” Bobby yelled, regaining his footing, and pushing Lucy back. She fell backward over the couch and hit her head hard on the coffee table. Marshall had tried to make a run for it, but Bobby was right behind him. As Marshall ran past Jenny, who was sitting on the floor, Bobby lunged for him and caught Jenny square in the mouth with his knee.

Lucy, holding her head, pulled herself up again and ran for the bawling child. Jenny’s mouth was bleeding, and one of her new teeth lay on the carpet a few feet away.

Screaming in fury, Lucy again went for Bobby, jumping on his back as he lay on top of Marshall, her fists pounding up and down on the intruder’s spine.

This time, it was Nick who pulled her off and threw her aside. “That’s enough,” Nick said, his voice sounding as if the whole episode amused him. He had been calmly watching since he kicked in the door. “Bobby, turn him over.”

Bobby turned Marshall over to face Nick. Standing over him, Nick demanded, “Where’s the Cruise?”

“I took it!” Marshall wept. “I took it, okay?”

“You took it?” blurted Bobby. “All of it?”

“Yeah!” Marshall admitted, crying. “We took it! Went partying with it! Please don’t kill us!” he pleaded. “I’ll pay it back, okay? I’ll pay it back!”

“You blasted junkie!” Bobby snarled, reeling back to punch him.

“Shut up, Bobby,” Nick ordered. “Marshall. Look at me.” Marshall was too busy crying, his face buried in his bloody hands, to look up. “Hey! Look at me, I said!” Marshall looked up at him. “Who owns this house?” Nick asked.

“We… We do,” Marshall answered shakily. “Got it…from Lu’s grandma…when she died.”

“Okay,” Nick said, “you are going to pay me back, you understand? When you get the insurance money, you bring it straight to me. You got that?”

“Insurance money?” Marshall asked.

“Bobby, let him up.” Marshall stood and backed away from them. He didn’t try to run again. “Take your wife and your girl here and get out,” Nick ordered. “You don’t bring the money like I said, we’ll find you, and we’ll kill them first. No questions asked. You understand?” Marshall nodded. “Bobby, go get some gas out of the car.”

“What? No!” Lucy yelled, suddenly realizing what was about to happen. “You can’t do this! This was my grandma’s house!”

Nick turned around to face her. “You should’ve thought about that before you tried to cheat me, trash.” He pushed her back away from him again. “I’m done dealing with you junkies,” he said. “I’ll get a professional next time.”

“C’mon,” whispered Marshall, taking Lucy by the arm. “We gotta go.” Lucy, sullen and angry but resolved to her fate, grabbed the bawling Jenny around her waist and stomped out the door.

Marshall, suddenly remembering Gretchen, ran down the hall and scooped her up.

“Don’t call the Force,” Nick warned as Marshall and Gretchen left the house. “You were gone when it happened.”

December 11^th.

A month later. With their house gone and having been forced to deliver the insurance money over to Nick Santori, Marshall, Lucy, Gretchen, and Jenny were now living in their car, an old Ford Voila! It wasn’t that they had to live in their car. Lucy could have asked her parents or an uncle, maybe, for some help, but how could she? She had lost Nanna’s house. Nanna had given her her house, free and clear, and she had lost it – let it burn to the ground, set on fire by a couple of drug dealers. All because she was on Cruise. A junkie. And her family would want to know where the insurance money went. What could she tell them? Not the truth, that was for sure.

They couldn’t even apply for government housing again because they still owned Nanna’s property and they couldn’t get government housing if they were landowners. So until they could sell the lot, they were stuck. In the car.

Having parked the Voila! in an alley between two apartment buildings, Marshall and Lucy crawled into the backseat to lie down while Gretchen and Jenny slept in the front.

After a while, though, Gretchen heard whispers coming from behind her. Turning around, she looked over the back of her seat and saw her father squeezing a syringe of blue liquid into his arm. He pulled the needle out and handed it to Lucy.

Lucy took the needle, but then looked up to see Gretchen watching her. “Oh, hi, sweetie!” she said. “Turn back around and go to sleep, okay?”

Gretchen cuddled back up with Jenny in the front.

Marshall, rubbing his arm where the needle had gone in, whispered, “She was watching us?”

“Yeah,” Lucy answered, “But it’s okay. It’s not like she knows what we were doing.” Then she poked a hole in the crook of her arm and injected the rest of the drug.

2067. September 12^th.

Nine months later. “Oh. No,” Lucy mumbled sleepily. Her face was flat against the back window of the Voila! and there was a fresh pool of liquid directly under her mid-section.

“What’d you say?” Marshall asked, not bothering to turn around. He was in the front seat with Gretchen and Jenny, giving them their morning spit-bath.

“Hey!” Marshall said a little louder when Lucy didn’t answer. “You say something?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said irritably, shifting to a more comfortable position. “Oh. Yeah. My water broke.”

“What? When?”

“I don’t know!” Lucy snapped. “I was sleeping!”

“Sleeping off your high!” he clarified as he opened the front door to get in the back.

“Yeah, well, so were you! What are you doing?”

Marshall was lifting up her bottom, feeling the wet spot. “Blast it, woman, get up!”

Lucy lifted up, arching her back so Marshall could get a good feel of the seat of her pants. Then he climbed back out and got in the front driver’s side. “We’ve got to get to the hospital!” he said.

“The hospital? Are you crazy?” Lucy asked. “They’ll arrest us! They’ll know we’ve been on Cruise!”

In fact, that was why Lucy hadn’t already had an abortion for this third child. While still reluctant, even Marshall acknowledged that they couldn’t raise another child right now. But if they went to have an abortion, Lucy would have to give a blood sample in case anything went wrong, and the doctor would immediately find out that she was on Cruise. Legally, the doctor would then have to report her to LandForce.

“Marshall!” Lucy begged. She was starting to cry now and so was Jenny, but Marshall had already started the car and given it its destination. Gretchen, beside him, just listened, trying to understand what the excitement was all about.

LandForce had arrested Lucy before, but that was years ago – before Marshall, before Gretchen and Jenny. How did I get back to this point? she wondered.

Five minutes later, Marshall ran through the automatic entrance of the Emergency Wing at Mercy First Hospital. “Excuse me!” he said, panting.

The nurse looked up from her computer monitor. She could see that Marshall’s clothes were dirty and worn. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved or bathed in a few days too. “Can I help you?” she asked sweetly.

“I need some help!” Marshall explained. “My wife. She’s having a baby!”

“Okay. And where is your wife now, sir?”

“In the car,” he said, pointing outside.

The nurse called two attendants over, and they hurriedly followed Marshall out to the car.

A couple of minutes later, they were wheeling Lucy in through the door in a wheelchair with four-year-old Gretchen and two-year-old Jenny trying to keep up beside them.

“Take her up to Maternity!” the nurse at the desk called. I’m paging Dr. Mayett now.”

An hour later, Lucy finally gave birth to the boy Marshall had been wanting. But when that boy was born, he was already seizing. Dr. Mayett quickly ran some tests on him and found that the baby had a high level of Cruise in his system.

“Hi, Ruth!” Peggy Kines said, walking into the familiar hospital social worker’s office. Peggy was from the Hemmle County Family Services Center and was no stranger to Mercy First. “I heard you’ve got something for me.” Then, looking down, she saw Gretchen and Jenny. “Oh! Hi!” she said, smiling. “How are you girls doing?” Gretchen looked up and smiled. Jenny kept scribbling. They were sitting on the floor, doodling with some crayons and coloring books that Ruth had given them.

“Yeah,” Ruth said. “Their mother – I guess she’s their mother – came in a little while ago in labor. She’s up in Maternity now. But both of them”, she said, lowering her voice and leaning in confidentially, “had Cruise in their systems. Their baby, a little boy, came out having seizures from it.”

“Is he okay?” Peggy asked.

“I don’t know. They’re trying to stabilize him, but you know what that stuff does. He’s probably already got some brain damage.”

“Okay,” Peggy nodded, taking in the situation. Unfortunately, this was nothing new in her line of work. “Can I leave the girls here for a few minutes while I go up and do some paperwork on the parents?”

“Sure, that’s fine. They’ll be fine. Won’t you, girls?”

Gretchen smiled again. She liked these two ladies. They were nice, and they looked good and clean in their business suits. “I’m going to name the baby Fart-bird!” she said proudly.

Ruth and Peggy both laughed hysterically at this sudden bit of comedy until Ruth, through the last of her chuckles, said, “Security’s got the father.”

That night, Lucy and Marshall’s third child died from withdrawal seizures, and Peggy drove Gretchen and Jenny to Viola’s Christian Home for Children, knowing that their parents would most certainly be serving out a Detention and Rehabilitation sentence for their drug use.

2068. December 18^th.

Fifteen months later. Things had been going pretty well for the Davis family. Six months ago, when Detention released Marshall and Lucy, their social worker, Peggy Kines, had used her position at the County to find them both jobs. Now, Lucy was working at Hardee’s and Marshall at the Dura-Link chain-link fence factory downtown. Convinced that Lucy was no longer in possession of the insurance money from her grandmother’s house, Peggy had also helped them to sell the empty lot and move once again into federal housing. Finally, she authorized the transfer of the children from Viola’s Christian Home into their custody.

Gretchen, however, had come back from the Home with a new interest. Five and a half years old now, she was sitting at the little round kitchen table with a children’s picture Bible opened to a random page while she worked on a puzzle of “Jesus and the Children.” The puzzle was already missing one of the corner pieces, but that didn’t bother Gretchen. She could still do the puzzle without it. Both the Bible and the puzzle were presents sent home with her when she left Viola’s, and she called what she was now doing playing Sunday School. Sometimes, she would ask Lucy and Marshall to take her to real Sunday School, but they never did.

2070. September 5^th.

Two years later. “Jump, Jenny, jump!” Gretchen encouraged. She was seven and a half years old now. She was standing on the couch, waiting for her five-year-old sister to jump over to her from the arm of the loveseat. But the little blonde chickened out, again, and instead of jumping, Jenny climbed down from the loveseat and ran across the floor to join Gretchen on the couch.

“No, Gretchen!” Jenny exclaimed. “You just ran over lava! You can’t touch the floor! You can only jump across it!”

But Jenny wasn’t listening. She was jumping up and down beside her on the couch now and shouting, “Jump, Jenny, jump!” as Gretchen had been saying only a moment ago.

It was then that Lucy came walking back through the living room. “Hey! Get down right now!” she yelled. And then she turned her head to the TV, where the news was busy reporting a new terrorist attack. “Oughta send all those Mohammads back where they came from,” she said. Then, turning back to the kids, “Get down!”

Jenny stopped jumping, but neither of the girls got down.

“Now, I’m going to work, so you kids be good, okay? Daddy’ll be home soon.”

As Lucy closed the door behind her, she heard a loud thud as Gretchen jumped off the couch and ran to another piece of furniture. Then, “C’mon, Jenny! Jump over here!” Lucy wondered if she should go back in and yell some more. Not worth it, she decided. They’ll start doing it again as soon as I leave, anyway.

2073. July 3^rd.

Three years later. “Get out of there!” Lucy hissed. “Aaron! Jenny! Knock it off!”

“You guys are so lame,” ten-year-old Gretchen commented.

Lucy and Marshall had brought Gretchen, Jenny, and their cousin, Aaron to Wal-Mart for the store’s Fourth of July sale and now five-and-a-half-year-old Aaron was chasing seven-and-a-half-year-old Jenny around the clothing racks while Lucy tried her best to bring them back under control without making a scene.

Just as Jenny and Aaron rounded another rack, Marshall reached through from the other side and grabbed one of each of their arms. The kids stopped, and Marshall let go of them long enough to come round and face them. Then he grabbed each of their arms again, past the elbow, and pinched their skin as hard as he could. “Now behave!” he said.

Aaron and Jenny both pulled away, crying as they rubbed and examined the places where Marshall had pinched them.

“Dad!” Gretchen protested, “You’re hurting her! Peggy said you’re not supposed to punish Jenny like that! She doesn’t understand!”

Lucy, upholding her husband’s tactics, spun to face her oldest daughter. “She has Down’s Syndrome, Gretchen! She’s not stupid! Even she should be able to understand that you can’t run around in the store like that!”

“Aw, whatever!” Gretchen huffed, looking away from her mother’s angry face.

July 5^th.

The next night. Gretchen, lying awake in her bed, was so irritated at her parents. They were having a Fourth of July party in their apartment, and everyone was drinking and being loud and keeping her from going to sleep. The party should be over, Gretchen thought. It’s not the Fourth anymore. The holiday’s over. Go home!

Some of Marshall and Lucy’s guests were beginning to leave, but others had no intention of doing so. She could hear her parent’s friend, Tim, still talking. Of course, Gretchen knew what her parents were probably doing now. She wasn’t stupid, and it was what they always did with Tim. The thing was that she liked Tim. He was a pretty nice, cool guy when he wanted to be. When he was sober, that is. It was just that eventually when Tim was around – and a lot of the times when he wasn’t – someone would break out the Cruise, the little vial of blue liquid that Gretchen’s parents thought she knew nothing about.

It wasn’t that Gretchen was against drugs completely. She had snuck her fill of her parents’ beer and cigarettes and, for the most part, she liked how they made her feel – all light-headed and relaxed. She could see herself trying other things some time even if her teachers told her not to. But she didn’t like it when her parents got drunk, or worse, used Cruise. It always made them act weird. They’d say things that didn’t make sense and get emotional sometimes. It was creepy. It reminded her of living with zombies.

Gretchen woke up an hour later, her heart pounding from the sound of Jenny’s frantic screams. “Jenny!” she yelled, trying to get her sister’s attention. It wasn’t uncommon for Jenny to have nightmares and to wake herself up like this.

But the next second, Gretchen’s eyes adjusted to the dark enough to see another figure moving in their room. Gretchen found herself screaming then and hurried to turn on the light beside her bed.

There, spinning back and forth in the middle of their room, was Tim, his hands up covering his ears. “What are you doing?” Tim asked, confusedly.

Gretchen breathed a little easier when she saw who it was. “Sleeping,” she answered.

“Oh,” said Tim, lowering his hands, “well, that’s no good.”

Marshall opened the door then, and Tim walked out.

“It’s okay, girls,” Marshall said groggily. “Go back to sleep.”

He left and closed the door again, leaving Jenny panting on her bed and Gretchen wondering what had just gone on. Was he trying to find somewhere to sleep?

Gretchen woke up again that night. She wasn’t sure why this time. She didn’t have to go to the bathroom. Had she heard something? Everything was quiet now. Did she have a bad dream? She didn’t think so.

Then she felt it. A presence. Someone else was in her room again, but this time, she wasn’t afraid. She looked down at the foot of her bed and saw an old man sitting there. He was wearing khaki slacks, a white dress shirt with a green sweater-vest over it. A plaid golfing cap covered his white hair. Gretchen didn’t recognize the man, and she did think it was strange for him to be in her room suddenly, but it was okay.

The old man smiled, waved, and Gretchen turned over and fell back asleep.

The next morning, she decided that the old man must have been an angel – her guardian angel, maybe.

2075. June 23^rd.

Two years later. Gretchen was twelve now, and she had gotten herself the job of part-time lawn-mower and general yard-girl for the apartment complex where they lived. Mr. Reese, the new landlord, had given Gretchen the job despite what he had seen of her parents. He had witnessed Gretchen walking Jenny home from school one day.

After that, Mr. Reese, the son of Korean immigrants, noticed a lot of things about Gretchen. He noticed that she and Jenny always got off to school together, hours before either Lucy or Marshall ever stirred. He noticed that she carried out her and her sister’s laundry every couple of days and did it all by herself. And that she walked with Jenny to the grocery and brought home food for the familyShe sat outside on the lawn and helped Jenny with her homework and then watched her play. Gretchen showed promise. Mr. Reese believed that she could grow up differently from her parents and he wanted to encourage her in any way he could.

“Hi, Gretchen! Hi, Jenny!” Mr. Reese had greeted as the two girls walked up to the cluster of apartment buildings one day.

“Hi, Mr. Reese!” said Gretchen.

“Hi, Mr. Reese!” Jenny repeated.

“Say, I saw you went and got some groceries yesterday!” Mr. Reese observed.

“Yeah,” replied Gretchen nonchalantly.

“Well, I bet that sure is a big help to your parents! Do they give you a list and some money and send you to go do it?”

Gretchen got a little uncomfortable then. She didn’t want to lie to Mr. Reese, but she didn’t want to tell the exact truth right now, either. “Um…sort of.”

In fact, Gretchen had always taken the money from either Marshall or Lucy’s wallet and bought whatever she thought they needed.

Mr. Reese nodded slowly. He understood more than Gretchen was saying. “You take good care of your sister, don’t you, Gretchen?”

“I try,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders.

“Well, how would you like to have some money of your own? I need someone to help me with the yard and some cleaning. Do you think you could do that?”

“Um…I guess!” Gretchen agreed. And so she had gotten the job. Now, for an hour or two every day after school, she would help Mr. Reese with whatever needed doing.

Today, Gretchen had just finished mowing the yard behind the complex and was giving Jenny a ride on tractor. Jenny was on the back of the mower, standing on the frame where the leaf and clipping collector bags would have sat had they been attached. She was holding on to the back of Gretchen’s chair.

They drove all around the backyard of the buildings. Gretchen turned this way and that, did donuts, and went full speed ahead, letting Jenny feel the wind on her face. Then, she did something stupid. She was going full speed ahead and suddenly slammed on the brake. Immediately, she put the mower in reverse, thinking that Jenny would enjoy the sudden, surprise change of direction. But instead of driving backward, Gretchen felt the mower’s back tires raise up, come back down, and then the whole mower stopped.

Gretchen looked around to see what had happened. She already feared that she had broken Mr. Reese’s tractor with her sudden shifting of the gears when she noticed that she couldn’t see Jenny behind her. Then she remembered feeling the raising and falling of the back tires. She looked down, and there was Jenny, lying facedown under the cutter deck. She had fallen off when she braked, and when she put it in reverse, she had run Jenny over. Luckily, she didn’t have the blades engaged, but Jenny could still be hurt. She hadn’t made a sound.

“Jenny!” Gretchen yelled, jumping off the mower. She kneeled down on all fours, getting down to Jenny’s level, trying to look into her face. “Jenny!”

Jenny looked up at her, silently sobbing. Gretchen stood up and grabbed Jenny’s arms. “Don’t worry, Jenny! I’ll get you out!” She pulled her, but she was stuck. She had no idea what Jenny’s mid-section might look like under there. She got back on the mower and tried to back up over her again. It didn’t work. She jumped down. “Don’t worry, Jenny! I’ll get help!” and she ran off.

Gretchen banged furiously on Mr. Reese’s door, frustrated tears blinding her now. She was greeted by the landlord’s bare chest and lathered face. He had been shaving to go out with Mrs. Reese that evening.

“Gretchen, what’s wrong?”

“Jenny got ran over with the lawnmower!” she breathed. She made it sound like it was all the lawnmower’s fault.

“What? No!” Mr. Reese gasped, rushing past Gretchen. He had seen Gretchen giving Jenny a ride out his window a few minutes before. He thought it might be a bad idea, but hadn’t said anything to stop them. He figured that he should let these kids, of all kids, have their fun.

Mr. Reese ran out the back door of the building. When he got past the parking lot and into the yard, he must have tripped on something because he fell, but didn’t stop moving. He did a somersault, rolled back up, and kept running in one fluid motion.

When he got to the mower, Mr. Reese bent down at its front, grabbed it by its front axle, and lifted. While he had it up, Gretchen ran around and pulled Jenny out from under it. She was whole. Her shirt had been ripped, but there wasn’t any blood on it.

“Thank God!” Mr. Reese breathed, picking the girl up. “I was afraid you’d been cut in two!”

He carried Jenny into his apartment and laid her on the couch. “Can you move?” he asked her. “Are you hurt?”

Jenny wiped her tears away and turned toward her sister and Mr. Reese.

“Why don’t you let me see your back, Jenny?” Mr. Reese said.

Jenny stood up and lifted the back of her shirt. There were a couple of broad scratches, probably where the metal of the cutter deck had slid over her. They were bleeding just a little bit in a couple of places, but, other than that, she was fine.

“Okay,” said Mr. Reese. Jenny lowered her shirt and turned back around.

She didn’t let go of the shirt, though. Instead, she twisted the back of it around and saw the tears. She looked up at Gretchen, glaring. “You ruined my shirt, Gretchen. Cut it up.”

Gretchen knew that the shirt was Jenny’s favorite. She wore it almost every day. It had a baseball pitcher throwing to a batter with a catcher behind him, and all of the players had the Pepsi logo on their generic uniforms. She felt bad about ruining the shirt but had to laugh. Jenny was so worried about her shirt, but did she even know how worried Gretchen had been about her?

2077. August 8^th.

Another two years later. “I’m bored!” Gretchen complained, walking into her and Jenny’s bedroom. Gretchen was fourteen now, and she had been getting bored a lot lately.

Jenny was there, laying out a deck of cards on the floor, all face up. “Bored,” Jenny repeated.

“You’re not bored,” Gretchen corrected. “I’m bored. You’re… What are you doing?”

But twelve-year-old Jenny didn’t answer.

Turning on the TV and slumping down on the bed, Gretchen continued, “None of my friends are home so I can’t go anywhere. And they’re out there, hogging the living room.” She meant their parents and Tim. They were in the living room, drinking, watching TV, and doing Cruise. “All the work’s done outside. Ugh, there’s nothing on!” She turned the TV off and pulled something out of her pocket. “Jenny.”

Jenny looked up and saw what Gretchen had. She was holding a half-empty vial of blue liquid and a syringe.

“You think I should try it?” Gretchen asked. “Mandy says she’s done it a bunch of times and she liked it. So has Karen.”

“Try it,” Jenny agreed, not knowing what it was.

“Good idea, sis. I think I will. Just to see what it’s like, you know?”

Gretchen left Jenny to her cards and walked down the hall, standing at the entrance to the living room. Marshall, Lucy, and Tim were all facing away from her, staring at the TV. Or maybe staring at nothing. They were zoning out.

She held the bottle of blue liquid in her hand and debated. She could set it down on the table, and none of them would know she had ever taken it. Or she could try the Cruise and find out why her parents, and so many other people, were so into it.

It wasn’t a hard choice. She turned around and walked back down the hall, toward the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened again. Gretchen looked up from her seat on the toilet lid and saw that it was Tim. Gretchen knew that she should hide the empty Cruise container, or at least take the needle out of her arm, but the thoughts came as mere suggestions, and she didn’t have the will to respond to them.

“Feel good?” Tim asked her, walking further into the room and closing the door.

She did feel good. Her heart was racing, but she was also completely relaxed at the same time.

“I saw you take that bottle,” he said. “You know what else feels good?” Taking her long, deep red hair in one of his hands, he began kissing her.

2078. June 16^th.

Ten months later. Gretchen was in her and Jenny’s room, playing video games. She didn’t play games often. There wasn’t much point. All their video games were old, presents their parents had bought for them used from the thrift stores. But, today, she was bored and didn’t have anything better to do.

“Hey!” Marshall barked, sticking his head into the room. “Didn’t I tell you to the clean the kitchen?”

Gretchen didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to clean the kitchen, and she wasn’t going to. Let him do something for once. Or Mom when she got home.

“Hey!” Marshall yelled again, coming into the room. “I told you to do something!” And he was suddenly on top of her, smacking her.

But she didn’t cry, and she didn’t say or do anything, either. She simply let him do what he wanted and waited until it was over. When he stopped, she sat back up and continued playing her game.

Marshall came back into the room a couple of minutes later. “I’m sorry,” he said.

But, again, Gretchen did not answer. Instead, she stood up, dropped the video game controller on the floor, and walked out of the apartment, heading for Tim’s.

She had been going to Tim’s a lot over the past few months. Normally, when she went over there, Tim would give her some Cruise and then she would let Tim mess around with her. She didn’t mind. It was true that her parents’ friend was almost twenty years older than her, but he was nice to her, and he was cute, kind of. But also, Tim lived by himself, and it was usually a good place for Gretchen to go hang out when her parents were fighting or getting on her nerves too much. He had even given her a key.

At the same time that Gretchen left the apartment for Tim’s, Peggy Kines heard someone slump down in the chair in front of her desk at the Hemmle County Family Services Center. She looked up and saw Lucy. She could tell that Lucy had been crying. Her eyes were all red and puffy. “Hi, Lucy! What’s up?” she asked.

Lucy smiled apologetically and grabbed a tissue off the desk. She wiped her nose, crumpled the tissue in her hand, and then said, “I need an abortion.”

Peggy sat back in her chair. “Okay,” she said, adopting a more serious attitude. “Why do you think you need an abortion?”

“I just…I just can’t do it anymore, you know? I can’t have any more kids. It’s hard enough taking care of the two we have.”

Peggy discreetly looked Lucy over. She wasn’t showing any signs of pregnancy. “How far along are you?” she asked.

“About two months, prob’ly.”

Peggy nodded. “You know, Lucy, once you abort a child, that’s it. You can’t take it back. There’s no changing your mind or…or thinking you made a mistake. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

“Yeah,” Lucy nodded. Of course, it was done. That’s what she wanted.

“Okay. Have you talked to Marshall about this?”

“Um…well…He doesn’t know. He’d worry too much, you know?”

“Don’t you think he’d want to know? To have some say in this decision?”

“It’s my body,” Lucy argued.

The baby is growing in your body, Peggy thought. It’s not your body. There’s a difference. “But if he’s the father…”

“Um…well…”

“I see. So Marshall might not be the father. And that’s why you want to get this done?”

Yes, Lucy thought. That and the fact that I’ve been on Cruise again and I don’t want to watch another child die from seizures as soon as he’s born. Plus, I don’t want to have to take care of another handicapped baby, like Jenny.

In all her years working with the county, Peggy had never once approved an abortion request from a client. She knew her job required her to do it if the client insisted, and there were plenty of other caseworkers in the office who wouldn’t hesitate to schedule abortions, but Peggy knew what her God required of her. She had always managed to stall and and counsel her clients toward other options.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Peggy said. “I’m going to schedule you an ultrasound at Mercy First tomorrow so we can find out how far along you are. They’ll also give the baby a paternity test so we can find out if Marshall is the father or not, okay? We have his code on file. In the meantime, I want you to go home and make sure that this is the right thing for you to do. Talk to someone. Maybe a pastor or a counselor or someone like that. I can give you a couple of numbers if you want. Then, you come back and see me, and we’ll talk about this again, okay?”

“Okay,” Lucy agreed. I can wait a couple more days if this is how you wanna do it.

June 18^th.

Two days later. Lucy came into Peggy’s office early that morning. It wasn’t even nine-thirty yet, and Peggy was still drinking her decaf coffee and looking over her files on the families that she was going to check in on today. ‘Checking in’ was her way of saying ‘dropping by unannounced so I can see what life in your house is like when you think no one’s watching.’

“Hi, Lucy,” Peggy said, looking up from her computer. “Did the hospital call you with your test results?” She knew that they had. Mercy First had called Peggy yesterday.

“Yeah, I got ‘em,” Lucy said.

“So you know Marshall is the father, then, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s good news, then.”

“Not really.”

Peggy was confused. “Why not? I thought you were worried about Marshall finding out that he wasn’t the father.”

“I was! But still, I’m two months pregnant, and I can’t have any more kids!”

“Okay. Let’s slow down a minute. First, have you talked to Marshall?”

“No. It’s not his choice.”

“But he is the father, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“So, don’t you think he has the right to say whether you abort his child?”

“It’s my body! It doesn’t matter what he says! We’re not having another kid!” He’s the one that made me have Jenny!

Legally, Lucy was right. “Okay. You don’t want another child. I can understand that.” In fact, Peggy was sure that Lucy and Marshall should not have another child. But neither should a child have to be killed to prevent that from happening. “Have you thought about adoption?”

“Adoption?”

“Yeah. We have parents, like you, all the time, who aren’t ready to have a child or aren’t ready to have another child, so they give that child up for adoption. That way they know their child is going to be brought up in a good home.”

Lucy shook her head. “I’d rather have it over with.”

Peggy sighed. There was no reasoning with this woman. “Okay. I see you’ve thought about this. I’ll get started on the paperwork.”

Peggy stood, shook hands with Lucy, and watched Lucy walk down the hallway. Peggy had no intention of starting the paperwork for Lucy’s abortion. Of course, she couldn’t tell Lucy that or Lucy would go down the hall to talk to another caseworker who would file the request. So instead, Peggy sat down again, pulled out her cell phone and called LandForce.

That afternoon, two LandForcemen showed up at the Davis’ apartment door, search warrant in hand. Twenty minutes later, they were delivering Marshall and Lucy to the Hemmle County Detention Facility for possession of Cruise while Peggy took Jenny back to Viola’s Christian Home. No one had seen Gretchen since she left school that day, but Peggy promised to bring her there, too, as soon as she found her.

2079. January 4^th.

Six months later. “Peggy,” came a voice from Peggy’s computer, “can I see you in my office please?” It was her boss, Tina McVety, using the office’s instant voice messaging system and she did not sound happy.

Peggy walked into Tina’s office and was told to have a seat in front of the desk. Tina, sitting, said, “I just got a phone call from Warden Kennedy. He says he’s got one of your clients there…” Tina paused while she looked down at her paper, searching for a name, “Lucy Davis, who says she requested you to file an abortion for her six months ago.”

Peggy didn’t say anything, but simply breathed in deeply, bracing herself for what was about to follow.

“Peggy, is that true?”

Peggy nodded slowly. “Mrs. Davis asked for an abortion, yes.”

“Did you file the abortion request with the Hospital?”

“No, I did not.”

Tina stood up, paced behind her desk for a moment, stopped, looked out the window, folded her hands in front of her nose, and finally turned back around to face Peggy. “Peggy, this woman’s almost due and she’s threatening to sue the county for blatantly denying her request.”

“She got put in Detention!” Peggy countered.

“Because you put her there! Now, you’ve been with us a long time, longer than I’ve been here, and you have a good case record, so I’m going to give you another chance. I want you to file the abortion request today – they can do it in the Detention Facility’s Clinic – and I want you to go see her. Talk to her. Try to smooth things over, okay? The last thing we need is her taking legal action against us.”

Peggy walked mechanically back to her office. She knew she wasn’t going to arrange the abortion, but she also wondered if there was any way she could save her job. Tina was right. She had been here a long time. And she had done a lot of good here too. But come what may, she wasn’t going to do something that she knew was wrong.

Three hours later, at the end of the workday, Tina poked her head into Peggy’s office. She had her briefcase and her jacket on, ready to leave for the day. She expected this to be a short conversation. “Peggy,” she said sweetly, “did you do what we talked about earlier?”

Peggy looked up. She had been expecting this conversation, dreading it, playing it through in her mind, all day. Some part of her instantly wanted to say that she had done what Tina asked, wanted to focus on how much good she could continue to do here for the families of Hemmle County if she would give in this one time. But she knew she couldn’t do that. “No, Tina, I didn’t.”

Tina stepped more fully into the office and shut the door. Slowly, she said, “Peggy, I asked you to do something. Now, are you going to do it or not? You have to be able to follow county policy on this.”

“I can’t,” Peggy said calmly.

“Okay!” Tina said, throwing up her hands. “You can’t do your job, then. You’ve just admitted it. You’ve left me with no choice but to let you go. I’ll give you an hour to clean out your office.”

Tina went back to her own office to wait until Peggy had left.

January 5^th.

The next day, the surgeon and the two nurses on staff at the Detention Facility’s Medical Clinic gave Lucy the abortion she had wanted.

January 10^th.

Five days later. Marshall and Lucy had been released from Detention two days ago and their old landlord, Mr. Reese, on voucher from the county, had agreed to give them another apartment.

Inside the apartment, unpacked boxes littered the floor – boxes packed and placed in storage by Peggy when the Davises were arrested. Lucy was not doing very well. She was nervously pacing the floor and crying. She kept glancing at Jenny and then quickly turning away again.

“What are you doing?” Marshall asked, scooting a couch into place in front of the TV.

“Nothing,” Lucy lied.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’? What’s the matter with you?”

“Where’s Gretchen?” Lucy shouted.

And everyone was quiet. None of them knew where Gretchen was. The fifteen-year-old hadn’t been seen for six months now, not since the day Marshall and Lucy went back into Detention.

“It’s fine,” Lucy said. “She can take care of herself. And she’ll come back.” But she kept pacing. And what else was it that Peggy had said? ‘Once you abort a child, that’s it. It’s done.’ And Lucy had aborted her child. She had aborted – killed – her fourth baby, and her first-born was missing, not to mention that the second was mentally handicapped and the third had died almost immediately after birth from her own, selfish drug habit.

“Come here, honey,” Lucy said, reaching for Jenny. She pulled the girl in close to her and hugged her for a moment before letting go again. Then she slumped down against the wall and onto the floor. Her crying was deep and silent.

Marshall came over to her. “Lu, what is going on?”

He put a hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it off. “Go get me something,” she cried.

“‘Go get you something’? Like what? What do you need?”

“You know. Something. I can’t take it anymore. I need something to take the edge off.” And she began crying louder.

“Lu, c’mon! Don’t do that. Just tell me what’s going on.”

But how could she? She had never even told him about this last pregnancy. She had gone through almost the whole thing while they were in separate sections of the Detention Facility and it was over by the time they got out.

She shook her head, and Marshall gave up. “Fine,” he sighed, reaching for his jacket.

An hour later, Marshall came back with a needle and a vial of Cruise. Lucy was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing but the wall. “I hope you’re happy,” he said, tossing the vial at her. It landed between her legs, and she slowly came out of her stupor. Looking down, she let her eyes rest on the vial for a moment before picking it up and reaching for the needle he was handing her.

As Lucy squeezed the liquid into the crook of her arm, the apartment door suddenly opened, and there stood her daughter. “Gretchen?”

Lucy was getting lightheaded, but she knew there was something different about the girl. Was she pregnant?

“What the…? Blast it, Gretchen! Who did this to you?” she heard Marshall yell.

But Gretchen was gone again, and Lucy couldn’t hold her mind together any longer. She was Cruising.

Turning and walking back down the apartment stairs, Gretchen cried and cursed herself for coming back here. You knew it’d be the same, she thought. They never change.

Gretchen had been staying at Tim’s, of course, and had eventually found herself pregnant. When Tim told her that he had heard her parents were back, she thought to come home. She knew Marshall and Lucy would flip out, but she could deal with that. And she wasn’t going to tell them who her baby’s father was. She just wanted them to know her situation. She wanted them to be there for her. She needed someone besides her thirty-something-year-old lover to support her in this.

Walking into the apartment office, she asked Mr. Reese, “Can I use your phone?” Mr. Reese, looking surprised to see her again, and surprised to see her pregnant, gave it to her. Gretchen dialed Peggy’s cell phone. She had been thinking about calling her for help lately – almost had quite a few times – and had the number memorized. “Peggy? It’s me, Gretchen.

“Gretchen?” Peggy asked on the other end. “Are you okay?”

“Um…well, yes. My parents are getting high again.”

“Gretchen,” Peggy sighed, “I’m not with the county anymore. I want to help you, but… Listen, your parents have one more strike. If they get into trouble one more time, with anything, they can’t have custody of you anymore. They will have used up all their chances. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“….Yes.”

“Okay. Please stay where you are. I’ll be there soon.” Peggy hung up and called LandForce. She wasn’t the Davis’ caseworker any more, but it didn’t matter. She still cared about Gretchen and Jenny, and LandForce would still have to investigate her tip.

Peggy, having seen the apartment complex’s number on her caller ID, arrived at the office at just about the same time as the Force did. Mr. Reese took the officers up to Marshall and Lucy’s apartment while Gretchen stayed with Peggy in the office.

“Gretchen,” Peggy said, looking into the girl’s still-bright, green eyes, “what happened to you? Where have you been?”

“I…I’m pregnant.”

“I can see that!”

“And I need some help. The father…wouldn’t be a very good father. And I…” Gretchen began crying then, and Peggy came over to hug her. “I don’t want my baby to die, you know? I’m not taking Cruise anymore.”

“You were taking Cruise?”

Gretchen, her head still buried in the older woman’s shoulder, nodded. She pulled back then and said, “I came home. I thought my parents would help me. I thought maybe they’d gone through Rehab and were better now, at least for a little bit, but they weren’t. There they were,” Gretchen chuckled through her tears, “shooting up again, like always, and I thought, How can they help me? These people can’t even help themselves.”

Peggy nodded and hugged the girl again. “I’ll help you.”

Go to Chapter 2

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Thursday, August 21, 2025

The Gifted by Steve Wilson - Book 1 - In the Beginning - Chapter 1

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Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

2063. May 25^th.

December 24^th.

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Pages

Thursday, August 21, 2025

The Gifted by Steve Wilson - Book 1 - In the Beginning - Chapter 1

ONE

Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

2063. May 25th.

December 24th.

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2063. May 25^th.

December 24^th.