FOUR
Shore Thing
2068. May 23rd.
Thirteen and a half months after Melody was born, Paméla Shore clutched her stomach with one hand and the rail of the crib with the other. “Something’s wrong!” she cried. “There’s something wrong with Danny!” She and her husband, Richie, were in the BabyMax store in the Base City Mall, picking out some more of the baby items they knew they would need.
Hearing the sudden worry in his wife’s voice, Richie ran from the other side of the display crib. “What? What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Richie Shore had been married to the cute, little, Jewish-Mexican farm-girl for less than six months. The last thing he wanted to hear was that there was something wrong with his wife or his soon-to-be-born son.
Paméla brushed his arm off and straightened back up. “It’s not me! It’s the baby! You’ve got to get me to the hospital!” And with that, she hurriedly began walking toward the store exit.
Richie didn’t dare question Paméla. If there was something wrong with the little person inside her, she would be the one to know. “Okay,” Richie said, following after her. “Don’t worry, Pam. I’ll get you there. Now, here, c’mon!” and he took her hand and started walking her back toward the rear of the store.
In the back corner of the store, Richie opened the door clearly marked “Employees Only” and guided Paméla up the long flight of stairs in front of them. After a minute of climbing, Paméla suddenly stopped. Richie turned around to see her bending over, holding her stomach. “Richie, I can’t do it!” she sobbed. “I can’t climb these stairs like this! We’re not going to make it!”
“Yes, we are!” Richie declared, and he scooped her up in his arms and raced up the stairs. It was these rare, very rare, instances that made him glad for all the mandatory exercises that the Force put him through.
Sweaty and panting, Richie gave a triumphant exhale as he kicked open the door at the top of the stairwell and carried his wife out onto the Mall roof. There, in front of them, was the Mall’s helicopter, kept there for medical emergencies. Richie had noticed it there many times in his flights around the city. “Almost there!” he panted.
Still in his arms, Paméla looked around and asked, “Richie, where are the medics?”
“No time for the medics!” Richie answered, setting her down in the back of the chopper.
“You’re not going to…?”
“Shore am!”
Buckling her in, Richie jumped into the cockpit and fired the ignition. The air vehicles weren’t like the new cars. You still had to drive planes and helicopters manually. “Hold on!” he called as the chopper lifted.
Once in the air, Richie picked up the radio and called the hospital. He knew the Commander would give him heck for not going to the Med Center on base, but the civilian hospital was closer. “Mercy First, this is SkyForce pilot Richie Shore. I’ve got a medical emergency with a pregnant woman. ETA on landing platform three minutes.”
“Roger that, SkyForce. We’ll be waiting,” came the voice of the hospital’s dispatcher. Richie didn’t know who the woman at the other end of the radio was, but he recognized her voice. As a pilot for SkyForce, he had carried many of Base City’s injured citizens to this hospital. Racing there now, he was flooded with the memory of the first time he had met Paméla.
It was about a year and a half ago now. He was stationed in Mamantel, Mexico and the city was having its annual festival for some saint or another. Paméla, even though her family didn’t honor the Catholic saints, would have remembered which saint’s day it was, but Richie couldn’t now. He didn’t take that stuff seriously anymore; hadn’t ever since his dad died.
But SkyForce rules were strict: “No interfering in the politics or cultural affairs of the region in which you are serving.” That meant, among other things, no going to local festivals. But, considering the day Richie had, he decided that a night out on the town was what he needed exactly.
The festival was great. There were people in costumes. and there were little plays going on and games and the sangria – well, the sangria flowed freely on a day like that. Alcohol was another one of those things that were prohibited to SkyForce personnel, but, again, Richie didn’t care that day.
At dusk, the dancing began. That’s when Richie first saw Paméla. He had been sitting with his friends, sobering up a little, when he caught sight of her across the dancing square. She was sitting by herself, watching the dancers. Richie got up from his seat and stood there for a moment staring at her, taking her in.
“Hey, where are you going?” Bruce asked, one of Richie’s fellow rogue pilots. “If you’re getting another drink, get me one, too, will ya?”
Without turning around, Richie announced, “I’m going to ask that girl to dance.” His voice was completely solemn as if he was about to embark on the most important mission of his life.
“What?” Bruce laughed. “You can’t do that! No interfering with the locals!” But Richie was already walking toward his target.
“Greetings!” he said, sliding into a chair across the table from her.
Startled, she looked over at him. “Oh! Hi!” she laughed. When he kept smiling at her, she asked, “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah. Are you here with someone?”
She realized now that he had come over to hit on her, but she decided to play dumb with him to see what he would do. “I’m here with my mother and father. I love to see them dance together.”
“So you’re not here with a husband or a boyfriend or anything like that?”
Paméla shook her head. “No.”
“Well, in that case, maybe you’d care to dance with me. You see, I didn’t know this was a dance, and I just brought my friends over there,” he pointed behind him, “and they’re not very good dancers.”
“Oh, I see,” she laughed as Bruce and the guys waved. “But, you’re not supposed to be here, are you?” She was teasing him now.
“Ah…well…”
“And I wouldn’t want to encourage you to stay any longer by dancing with you. That would only get you into more trouble, don’t you think?”
“Hmm,” he chuckled. “That’s a good point, a good point. But, you see, someone told me that you were going to be here tonight, so I told my Commander that I wanted to come meet you, and he gave me special leave. So, now, I can dance with you.”
“Oh? Okay, Skyboy. If your Commander said it was all right, then I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”
As Richie took her hand and led her to the dance floor, he introduced himself, and then asked, “How did you know I was SkyForce?”
“I could tell.”
A few months later, Richie had gotten the order that he was being transferred to Base City, his hometown, and even though he and Paméla had only known each other for a short time, Richie knew he loved her. He proposed, and Paméla gladly accepted. They were married in her home synagogue and, after a honeymoon on the Atlantic shore, spent Hanukah in Mamantel with her family. They were in Base City by New Year with Richie ready to report for duty.
When Richie landed the chopper on the roof of Mercy First Hospital, a team from the Emergency Wing was there waiting for them. They rushed over and helped Paméla onto a gurney. Wheeling her inside, the doctor said, “I’m Doctor Rebecca Mayett. What’s your emergency?”
“It’s my baby!” Paméla cried. “Something’s wrong with my baby!”
Seeing Richie following the gurney, Dr. Mayett yelled back to him, “We’ve got it! You can go now!”
“I’m her husband,” Richie explained and kept following.
Once behind a curtain in the Emergency Wing, Dr. Mayett quickly did an ultrasound on Paméla. Looking up from the screen, she said, “Mrs. Shore, your baby has his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. He’s suffocating. We can take the baby now, and he’ll live, but he’s not fully developed. He might have some complications.”
What did she mean he wouldn’t be fully developed? What kind of complications was she talking about? But it didn’t matter. “Okay,” Paméla wept, as she squeezed Richie’s hand. “Just save him. Please save my baby.”
Doctor Mayett nodded and injected Paméla with pain suppressants. Then she turned back to the ultrasound screen. “I don’t know how you knew something was wrong, Mrs. Shore,” she commented, “but you did the right thing.”
A moment later, Doctor Mayett quickly turned back around. “He’s turned again! The cord’s wrapping tighter!” Taking up her scalpel, she made a small incision on Paméla’s abdomen. “Did you feel that, Mrs. Shore?”
“Yes!” Paméla whimpered. The pain suppressants hadn’t taken effect yet.
Frantically, Dr. Mayett explained, “Mrs. Shore, if I take your baby now, you’re going to feel it. If I don’t take him, he’s going to suffocate to death. It’s up to you. Do you want this baby or not?”
“Yes!” Paméla said and immediately felt Dr. Mayett’s knife slice open her middle.
Danny was blue when Doctor Mayett pulled him out. “Oh, no!” Richie whispered, his throat dry. Paméla had passed out.
“He’s okay,” Doctor Mayett assured him. “Give him a minute.”
May 24th.
Jodie Shore, Richie’s mother, came walking into Paméla and Danny’s hospital room first thing the next morning. Paméla had just woken up, feeling a sharp twinge of pain and needing some more pain suppressants. Richie and Danny were sleeping, Danny in his portable incubator and Richie slumped in the chair next to him.
“Hi!” Paméla whispered, greeting her mother-in-law as she pressed the call-button on her remote control.
“Hello, dearie!” Jodie beamed. “How are you?” Oh, and there he is!” She walked past Richie over to the incubator. “He is so precious!”
“Hey, Ma!” Richie said thickly, standing up and embracing his mother as he woke up. “I guess you’re a grandma twice now, huh?”
“I shore am!” she laughed.
Richie smiled. “Reminds me of dad every time you say that.”
“Oh, I know! He used to say it all the time!” Then, after a slight pause, she said, “Richie, he would’ve loved to be here for this. He would have been so happy and so proud of you.”
Richie doubted that. His dad had been on the church board, a conservative American veteran and a conservative Christian. Richie, on the other hand, while following in his father’s footsteps on the patriotic front, had veered off in almost every other way. He had apostatized from the religion, had impregnated a Jewish girl – a Jewish girl! – before marriage, and then had married that Jewish girl. No, all things considered, he didn’t think his dad would be very proud of him. His mother hadn’t been either – she had made that known as soon as she heard the news of the marriage – but she was in acceptance mode now. Richie thought that his mom did like Paméla as a person – and she was, of course, excited to be a Grandma again, a natural Grandma this time – but she didn’t like the fact that her daughter-in-law, and now her grandson, were of a different religion. He was surprised she hadn’t tried harder to convert his new wife. “Here,” Richie said, “let me call a nurse to get him out of there, and we’ll let you hold him.”
“I already called the nurse,” Paméla said.
Emily, their nurse came in then. “Good morning!” she said, smiling. “Hello, everyone! How are we feeling?”
“Not so good at the moment,” Paméla confessed.
“You need some more suppressants in your I.V.?” Emily asked.
“Please.”
“No problem.”
As the nurse was refilling Paméla’s I.V., Richie asked her, “When you’re done with that, can we take the baby out for a minute so Grandma can hold him?”
“Sure.”
“How long does he need to be in there, anyway?” Richie asked.
“Oh, the day nurse, Erica – she should be here soon – will take him out this afternoon. It’s standard procedure to keep newborns in the incubator for the first twenty-four hours.”
When Jodie had held Danny for a few minutes and then Paméla again, Emily gently put him back into the incubator and wished them a good day.
After she left, Richie again turned to his mother and said, “You know, Mom, I’m sorry we didn’t call you earlier yesterday. With everything going on… And then by the time I did call, it was after visiting hours.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re both okay!” she said, looking past Richie and smiling at Paméla. But Paméla had already fallen asleep again.
Then, Richie’s half-brother, Deputy Protector General Jim Slate, and his wife, Doranne, came in with their little boy, Eric. “Hey, bro!” Jim said laughing, hugging Richie and then moving on to Jodie. “Hey, Ma!”
Jim turned back to Richie. “You know I’m gonna have to take you in for hijacking that chopper, right?” he joked.
Richie laughed and stuck out his arms for the handcuffs. “Guilty. I’m guilty.”
Doranne, holding one-year-old Eric up to Danny’s incubator, said, “What do you think of that, Eric? There’s a baby in there. That’s your cousin Danny.”
That afternoon, Paméla’s parents, Roberto and Gabriela, arrived, from Mamantel. Coming into the room, they found Jodie, Jim, Doranne, and Eric all gathered around Richie, who was holding baby Danny in his arms and trying hard to quiet him down. For some reason, Danny was crying hysterically, and no one seemed to be able to do anything about it. Marching into the room, Gabriela took charge. “Paméla, you are a brave girl to give birth to this son in the way that you did, but why do you let him cry like this?”
“Hi, Mamá! I don’t know why he’s crying! He’s been like this for hours! Non-stop!”
“Did you feed him, child?” Gabriela asked.
“Of course, I did, Mamá.”
“Is he in pain?”
“I don’t think so. The nurse can’t find anything wrong with him. We haven’t seen the doctor yet today.”
“Maybe he needs a change,” Gabriela suggested.
“Mamá, he doesn’t need a change!” Paméla protested. “He’s been changed three times already today!”
“Let us check. You’re new at this.”
“Gabi,” Roberto said firmly, speaking for the first time since entering the room, “if she says he doesn’t need a change, he doesn’t need a change.”
But Gabriela, drawing on her years of practice ignoring her husband, took Danny from Richie’s arms, carried the bawling child over to the table, and undid his diaper. “Richie, come here.” Her voice was calm but commanding.
Richie walked over and said, “What is it, Mama?”
“Has this child…had a bowel movement?” Gabriela asked seriously.
“Uh…no, not yet. Just pee.”
Gabriela lifted Danny’s legs with one hand and spread the cheeks of his bottom with the other.
Then Richie saw the problem. “What the…?” he marveled. Then, after taking a moment to allow the new discovery to sink in, he exclaimed, “Pam! Push your button for the nurse! He can’t poop!”
“What?”
“He can’t poop! He doesn’t have a hole!”
Paméla pushed her call button, and Nurse Erica walked into the room in time to see each member of the family taking their turn in confirming Gabriela and Richie’s finding.
That evening, Doctor Mayett did an emergency colostomy on Danny. Walking out of the operating room to the waiting area, she found the family huddled together and explained, “Paméla, Richie, Danny’s doing fine, but we’re going to keep him back there for a little while until the anesthesia wears off. You can go back and see him in a minute. Just you two though.
“Now, we talked about this a little before the surgery, but I want to make sure you understand everything. Yesterday, with the premature birth, we knew that there might be some complications with Danny. One of those complications is that he was born with an imperforated anus. He’s too young for us to form one now, so he’s going to have a colostomy bag for a couple of years. He’ll be able to urinate like normal, but all of his other waste will go into the bag attached to his side. You’ll need to change it for him a few times per day. Your nurse can show you how to do that. When he’s older, we’ll do another couple of surgeries over the course of a year or so to form the anus for him and then redirect his large intestine. Do you have any questions about that?”
Richie and Paméla looked at each other. The information was still too new, too unexpected, for them to form any questions.
May 31st.
A week later, at the small Beth Adonai Synagogue in downtown Base City, Rabbi Levi Philips motioned for Richie and Paméla to come forward, along with Paméla’s parents, Roberto and Gabriela. Grandma Jodie had politely excused herself from coming to the service. Once the family had taken their place in front of the rest of the small number of Jewish congregants, Rabbi Philips said, “Please bring the child forward” and Joshua and Lauren Hassivi, a young couple, married a month ago, carried the robed eight-day-old from the rear of the sanctuary to the front. By allowing Joshua and Lauren to bring Danny forward, the congregation was blessing the young couple with the ability to produce children of their own soon.
When Joshua and Lauren reached the front of the sanctuary, they gave Danny into Richie’s arms and took their seats in the congregation. Then, Rabbi Philips announced, “The Lord has commanded us to be fruitful and to multiply, to fill the earth and to rule over it. He commanded our ancestors to keep His Law and His covenant, the sign of which is holy circumcision. So we do now circumcise this child as God has commanded. And we charge you, Richie, and you, Paméla, Roberto, and Gabriela, with the responsibility of raising this child according to the Law of the Lord. Do you accept this most sacred responsibility?”
The family answered in unison, “We do.”
“Very well,” said the Rabbi, smiling. He took Danny from Richie and, unwrapping the infant’s robe, asked, “What do you name this child?”
“His name is Daniel Miles Shore,” his father answered.
And with that, the Rabbi deftly sliced away Danny’s foreskin, bandaged him with some soothing and antibacterial ointment, rewrapped the robe, and asked God’s blessing on him. was about to perform
2069. September 5th.
A year and a half later. Richie closed the lid of his laptop when he heard Paméla walking toward the kitchen.
“What’cha doin’?” the Mexican woman asked sweetly.
“Nothin’. Just goin’ over the budget.”
Paméla nodded. Then, after a moment, she ventured, “How are we doing? On our plan?” The family lived in a nice but small house that looked exactly like all of the other houses in the residential section of Willman SkyForce Base.
“What plan?” Richie asked. He was stalling, of course. He knew that whenever she said ‘our plan’ like that, she meant buying a house off base. She had grown up in the Mexican countryside where her parents had a garden and raised chickens. Her father had built their house with his own hands. How could he blame her for wanting a house and some land of their own? He wanted it, too, for her and for Danny, but… “I’m sorry, Pam. We don’t have enough money yet.”
But he could see by the look on her face that his pat answer wasn’t going to work today. “Why don’t we have enough money, Richie? We’ve been saving, haven’t we? We don’t have any debts! And SkyForce pays for all Danny’s hospital bills!”
“I’m sorry, Pam. I’ve looked at the budget, I’ve looked at our savings, and we don’t have enough yet.”
“Let me look at them, Richie! You never show me the budget! You never show me the savings!”
“What? Why do you need to look at ‘em? You don’t trust me?”
“No, Richie. I…”
“You think you wanna do our finances now and worry about all this stuff? You wanna pay the bills?”
“No, not necessarily. I will…”
But he didn’t want her to, and that was the problem.
“Fine.” Paméla sighed and walked out of the room. Richie worked and she did not. She didn’t want to seem unappreciative of that, and yet it had been Richie himself who had kept her from working. She had offered to go get a job on more than one occasion, but he always said that he liked having her at home. He liked that she didn’t have to work. He liked having a clean house to come home to and not having to pay some stranger to take care of their child. And Richie did provide well for Danny and her, and he had promised that one day, eventually, they would get a house of their own. But, still, it didn’t make sense. Where was all their money going?
2070. July 28th.
The next year. Danny was two now, and if there was anything that he enjoyed more than bath time, Richie and Paméla didn’t know what it was. If Paméla even mentioned the word bath, the sandy brown-haired boy would run to the bathroom and hurriedly strip, waiting for his mom to start the bath water.
Washing was no problem for Danny because he knew that when he was done washing, he could play. Mom would dump his Legos and his SeaForce boats and scuba divers into the water and then let him go at it while she sat on the lid of the toilet, reading a magazine.
The problem came when Paméla was tired of reading and sitting in the bathroom because even when the water had turned mostly cold, Danny would still refuse to get out. Today was no different. Danny had been in the tub for about half an hour when Paméla set her magazine down on the sink and stood. Looking into the water, she could see Danny’s half-full colostomy bag floating just under the water. She had changed it right before he got in the bath but now made a mental note to change it again before he put his pajamas on. “Danny, time to get out.” She stretched Danny’s SeaForce Joe towel out for him, hoping it would attract him into it.
“No!” Danny yelled, plunging his toy diver off of the boat and into the water again.
“Don’t tell me ‘no,’ Danny. Come. Look, I have your favorite towel.”
“No!” he repeated.
“Daniel Miles…” Paméla began, making her voice sound more commanding.
“No!” Danny shouted a third time, refusing to look at her. It was as if he was hoping that if he didn’t look at her – if he didn’t make eye contact – she would go away and leave him to his toys.
“I’m tired of arguing with you about this, Daniel!” Paméla snapped. Reaching down into the water, she lifted the lever and unstopped the drain. She reasoned that if there was no water left in the tub, there would be no reason for him to want to stay in.
Seeing the water going down the drain, Danny suddenly screamed and jumped out of the bathtub into his mother’s arms.
Paméla was shocked at his reaction. “Danny, what’s the matter?”
“I doh’t want go down the drain!” Danny whimpered.
“Oh, Miley,” she laughed, using his middle name, “I wouldn’t let you go down the drain!” She hugged him and carried him out into the living room where she could cuddle him on the couch. At least she had finally found a way to get him out of the tub.
2071. August 30th.
A year later. “Ma, I’m done! Done, Ma!” Danny said, proudly holding his creation up to her as his kippa slid further back on his head
“Oh, that’s very good, Danny!” Paméla said, taking it in her hands and examining it. They were at the synagogue, and this was her week to teach Children’s Class. She had never had Children’s Class when she was a kid. She went to Sabbath School, of course, but then all the kids had to sit through synagogue with their parents and try to be good. But Rabbi Philips liked to do things differently. He said that with more and more children leaving the faith when they get older, it was important to make synagogue more kid-friendly so that they could give them a strong foundation from the start. Then, when the children entered their year of preparation prior to their bar or bat mitzvah, they could join the service and try to follow along with the songs and readings. Paméla thought Children’s Class was a good idea for the kids, even if it did take her out of the service once in a while.
This week, Paméla had taught the kids a lesson about the importance of praying for God’s protection, particularly on those people who might have been hurt in the recent Chinese attack and on those who were going to fight the Chinese in the war. Now, the students were decorating prayer pockets to keep their prayers to God in. “Sarah!” she called to one of the four-year-old girls. “Miss Coburn! Keep your hands to yourself! Thank you.” Then, looking at Danny, “Go put your crayons back in the bucket, okay?”
But as Danny turned to walk back to the table, he froze. Paméla looked down at him and could see her dark-haired little three-year-old trying to clench his butt muscles as hard as he could. “Go to the bathroom!” she whispered. But she could tell by Danny’s face that it was too late.
It had not been a good day for Danny. Doctor Mayett had formed his anus and taken off his colostomy bag nine months ago. For a month after that, Richie had to sanitize a white, round, plastic tool and use it to stretch out Danny’s new orifice once a day. Paméla didn’t want to do it because she thought she was hurting him. Then, they had worked with him to re-potty-train him, but that wasn’t as successful as they had hoped. Danny never seemed to know when he had to go and when he did go, he almost always had diarrhea. He was constantly in and out of the hospital for dehydration.
On one of their visits, Dr. Mayett had come in to speak with them. “I don’t understand it,” she had admitted. “We’ve done some more testing, and it’s almost as if his nerves down there aren’t registering. I don’t know what else we can do for him. I’m sorry. There’s more to his problem than we originally thought. The only thing I can say is that it’s as if his whole digestive system is somehow underdeveloped. He’s not absorbing as much liquid as he should, and his nerves aren’t giving him enough warning to get to the bathroom or to exercise proper muscle control. The best thing you can do for him is put him on anti-diarrheal and maybe keep some kind of diaper on him.”
“A diaper?” Richie had asked.
Dr. Mayett nodded. “It’s possible that his nerves will develop a little more, and he’ll have more control as he gets older, but until then…” She shrugged her shoulders. “You’ll also want to watch his development during puberty. Many times, when someone is underdeveloped in their abdominal organs, they end up being underdeveloped in their reproductive other organs too.”
“You mean…?” Richie began.
“I mean if he’s having these intestinal problems, there’s no telling what other areas might be affected. It all goes back to his premature birth.”
Now, Paméla was getting a little frustrated. She had given him his medicine this morning and put a diaper on him, but he had messed that during Sabbath School and she had somehow forgotten to restock her purse supply, so she had been forced to trust Danny to wear his underwear the rest of the morning. Now, he had messed those, too, and she was out of options. She knew that it would start showing through his pants any second.
“Here,” she said, taking off her long-sleeve shirt and wrapping it around his waist. She had a tank-top on underneath.
Ten minutes later, the synagogue service was over, and Paméla dismissed the kids to the Fellowship Room to find a snack and their parents while she took Danny into the bathroom to clean him up as best she could.
On the way home, they went through the drive-thru at McDonald’s for lunch. “What do you want?” Paméla asked. “A Happy Meal?”
“Chicka nuggets! And Fench fries!” Danny agreed.
She ordered his Happy Meal and something for herself and Richie, who was at home. Richie never went to synagogue with them unless it was a special occasion. He had gone to Danny’s eight-day brit milah and usually went for the big holidays to support her, but he wasn’t interested in all the week-by-week religious stuff. And today, he had said he had to do something with SkyForce. Paméla didn’t doubt it. The Chinese Air Defense had bombed almost every SkyForce base in the country only a few days ago, and she was sure all Force personnel were working overtime, either on rescue and repair efforts or gearing up for counter-attack missions. She was still amazed and praising God that Richie had been off duty when it had happened, and now, despite the fact that Richie was itching to go take revenge on the Chinese for all his friends and coworkers who had died, she hoped that maybe he would be one of the pilots to have to remain at home.
When they got back to the house, Richie was outside, sitting on the front porch in his suit, waiting for them. He had a young girl – she looked to be a little older than Danny – dressed up and sitting there with him.
Paméla had a confused look on her face as she walked up the driveway. Danny, excited, ran past her and beat her to the porch. “Who are you?” Danny asked. He thought the girl was very pretty and was eager to make friends with her.
But the girl didn’t answer. She looked up at Richie, who answered for her. “Her name’s Melody. Melody, why don’t you let Danny take you inside? He’ll share some of his fries with you. Won’t you, Danny?”
Danny opened the front door. He waited for Melody to follow him in, but the little girl hadn’t moved.
“It’s okay,” Richie said. “I’ve told you about Danny. Go on in with him.” And Melody got up.
Once the door was closed again, Richie stood up to face his wife.
“Who is that?” Paméla asked.
“She’s my daughter,” he said.
Richie had expected her to get angry and was confused when he watched her face turn to grief instead. Then he realized what she must be thinking and said, “No, it happened before we were married, when I was stationed at Newsprings. I didn’t cheat on you, I swear. I was seeing this girl, a flight mechanic named Bethany that worked there on the base.”
“Bethany,” Paméla repeated. She sat down on the steps and started to cry.
“Pam…” he said, getting down next to her. He put his arm around her and began rubbing her back.
She flinched and stood up again, repelled by his touch. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “You said I was your first!”
Richie didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I wanted to make you feel special,” he replied. “You said you were a virgin, so I thought…”
“Well, I feel special now, don’t I?” she snapped.
“Pam…” Richie began softly. “I… You’re just like my mom, you know? Always talking about God and Jesus – well, not Jesus, obviously – and…I thought…I don’t know. I guess I was afraid. I mean, would you have married me if you knew?”
“I don’t know, Richie!” she yelled. “I married you even though you won’t go to synagogue with me! I probably shouldn’t have, but I did! At least I never lied to you!”
Now Richie was struck. He knew Paméla wanted him to go to synagogue with her, but he didn’t know she felt this strongly about it. He didn’t know she regretted marrying him because of it. But she hadn’t said she actually regretted it, did she? What could he say? But he didn’t have to say anything because Paméla switched back to the topic at hand.
“Why now, Richie? Why’d you bring her here now?”
Richie took a deep breath. “Pam, you should know that I’ve known about Melody since, well, since the day she was born. Bethany called me down at Mamantel and told me the news. I didn’t know she was pregnant when I left. I just figured I was breaking up with her. We weren’t that serious, anyway. Well, that night, right after she called, was when I met you. I hung up the phone, and I had to get off the base for a while, you know? I’m glad I did. Otherwise, I would’ve never met you.”
“Why did you bring her here, Richie?” Paméla repeated.
Richie took another breath. “Because Bethany died. She died in the attack.”
Paméla did not talk to Richie very much over the next couple of days. She did her best to keep Danny and Melody from knowing that she was upset. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them, especially to Melody. It wasn’t Melody’s fault that Richie had lied to her. She was a young girl who had lost her mom and was now suddenly living with a father that she barely knew. So Paméla tried as hard as she could to make the girl feel at home. She knew that Melody was young enough that in time, she would come to love her like she was her own daughter.
September 6th.
A week after Melody arrived. Paméla, Melody, and Danny had just gotten home from synagogue when Paméla asked Richie to follow her into their bedroom. Richie wasn’t sure what to expect, but he followed her obediently. He was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t.
“Answer me one thing,” Paméla said when she had shut the door behind them. “Melody. Is she the reason why we couldn’t buy a house? Why you wouldn’t ever let me see the checkbook?”
Richie didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to lie to her again, but he didn’t want to admit it, either. He felt as if whatever he said would get him into more trouble.
“Answer me, Richie,” she demanded.
Sighing, he slumped down on the bed and said, “Yes. I was sending Beth money. For Melody. We had an understanding.”
“Okay. That’s fine.” Paméla pulled a chair over to the bed. She sat and looked him in the eyes. “Richie, I forgive you,” she said evenly. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, but I forgive you.”
Richie, looking into her eyes as she spoke, felt his face tightening. Before he knew what was happening, he was crying, and he instinctively stood to hug the woman in front of him. Paméla, crying empathetically now because of his tears, received him. They stood there, locked together, for a long time.
2072. July 4th.
Ten months later, the whole family – Jim, Doranne, and Eric; Richie, Paméla, Melody, and Danny – all went to Grandma Jodie’s for a Fourth of July cookout.
“Lunch time!” Grandma Shore called up the stairs. The three kids had been playing together upstairs in the back bedroom.
Grandma had gone back to the stove, stirring her baked beans, while Jim and Richie discussed the war with China and Doranne and Paméla shared stories about the kids.
Richie liked to hear the scoop on things from Jim. As a SkyForce pilot – Richie had no intentions of becoming anything more – he was not privy to the kinds of details that Jim was as a Deputy.
Both Jim and Richie’s fathers had died while married to their mother, Jim’s of a heart-attack when Jim was three and Richie’s when he was fifteen. Richie’s father had been a SkyForce Captain and had been killed while stationed in the Indian Ocean during the Iranian War. Though neither of the boys would ever put it so simply, Richie’s father, who had become like a father to Jim, too, was probably the main reason that both boys had joined the Force in the first place.
“What do you want on your hotdog?” Grandma asked Melody as she was the first one in line for the food. Melody was five now, and it had been almost a year since she came to live with the Shores.
Offended by the question, Melody yelled, “I hate hotdogs! Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?
Melody regretted it immediately. She didn’t even know why she had said it. Something she had seen on TV maybe? She loved hotdogs! She was wondering how bad the consequences of her outburst were going to be, hoping that by some streak of good fortune no one had heard her, when, to her utter disappointment, she heard her father’s voice coming from the next room, loud and clear.
“Melody!” Richie roared, and Melody turned and raced past Danny and Eric on her way back up the stairs. She knew that it was futile to run – Richie would catch her soon enough – but she couldn’t help but try.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Grandma said, compassionately trying to spare her disrespectful granddaughter.
“No, it’s not!” Richie insisted.
“Go get her!” Jim laughed. Doranne smacked Jim’s arm playfully. “Ow!” he said and kept laughing.
A moment later, Melody was allowing Jim to lead her back down the stairs. She was holding his hand with one of hers while the other held her still stinging bottom. Richie walked Melody over to Jodie and said, “Apologize!”
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” mumbled the teary-eyed Melody.
“That’s okay, dear,” Grandma said, bending down and hugging the little girl. Then, she straightened up and handed Melody a plate with a hotdog on it. Melody did like hotdogs.
2073. December 24th.
A year and a half later. “Dad! Look!” Danny, riding on Richie’s shoulders, pointed at the candy shelf as they walked past the airport gift shop. “Can I get something?”
“No.” They were already running late getting to their gate. They had left the house on time, the first time, but then Melody had thrown up her lunch in the car. Alphabet soup, with some of the letters still intact. She felt fine now, but they had to go back to the house to get her changed and clean out the car. The last thing they wanted was to come back from their Hanukah visit to Mamantel with week-old Melody-puke in the back seat.
“Dad!” Danny whined.
“No.”
“But, Dad,…”
“No.”
“I want…”
“I refer you to my earlier answer, son.”
Unsatisfied, Danny began squirming atop Richie’s shoulders. Paméla, walking beside them with Melody, reached her hand up to steady him. “Don’t do that, Danny,” she warned softly. “You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“I don’t care!” Danny pouted, thrashing even harder.
“All right,” Jim sighed, lifting Danny down. “I guess it’s time for you and me to go into the bathroom for a spanking.”
“No!” Danny whined, backing away and sticking his butt out far behind him.
Paméla and Melody always had to laugh at the five-and-a-half-year-old’s butt thrust, but Richie wasn’t amused. “Yes,” the father insisted. “You don’t want to behave? Then, let’s go.” He grabbed Danny’s hand and started pulling him back toward himself. Danny made himself as heavy as possible and pulled back.
Just then, an explosion shattered the windows in front of them. It felt as if it had shattered their eardrums. Richie pulled Danny, Paméla, and Melody down with him and covered their bodies as best he could with his own. His ears were ringing.
Seeing that they were safe, he stood up and quickly surveyed the area for threats and injuries. Seeing none, he stepped over a man in a suit and walked to the blasted-out row of windows.
Outside, he could see black smoke billowing off the frame of a plane. Airport security and crewmen were busy shouting and rushing toward the disaster.
In somewhat of a delayed reaction, an alarm sounded all through the airport and its grounds. The cacophonous clanging of the bell was hidden under the pleasant and soothing female voice of the automated announcer. “Threat level: Red. Threat level: Red. Please remain where you are until directed by emergency personnel. Threat level: Red…”
Richie cursed under his breath and walked back to Paméla and the kids. “What’s happening?” Paméla yelled.
“What?” Richie yelled back, covering one ear and leaning closer to her with the other.
“What’s happening?” she repeated.
“I don’t know! I’m going to see if I can help!”
“What?”
“I’m going to see if I can help!”
Another explosion sounded further down.
Danny and Melody were already crying, their faces buried in Paméla’s lap. Paméla suddenly began crying herself. She reached up and grasped her husband’s arm. “Don’t go!” she pleaded. “Stay here! Stay with us!”
But Richie pulled away. “I have to! SkyForce!” And he turned and ran down the corridor.
Another explosion.
“Oh, God!” Paméla cried in prayer.
Jim Slate showed up twenty minutes later, along with Fire Deputy Darcey Piper. He found Richie helping people out of collapsed boarding tunnels. “You okay?” Jim asked.
“Yeah,” Richie nodded. “What happened?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The explosions had stopped, hopefully for good.
“Terrorists?”
“Well, I don’t think four planes go boom in a ten-minute period from mechanical failure, do you?”
Richie shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
A LandForceman drove Paméla and the kids home while Richie stayed to help, air-shuttling the injured to Mercy First, and later the dead to the county morgue.
December 25th.
Richie stumbled through the door early the next morning. He had been at the airport all night. “We’re going to have to drive,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“Drive?” Paméla asked, waking up and rolling over. “Drive where?”
“To Mamantel. All the airports are shut down for at least a week. Worst attack since the Chinese. They hit about thirty airports all over the country.”
“You know it was terrorists?”
“Who else is it gonna be? Anyway, yeah, Jim said one of the mechanics confessed. Some English guy who says he was working with a group called Allah’s Fist. Can you believe that? Allah’s Fist! He said he planted the bombs and then watched while he detonated them. Timed it so it would be right when a bunch of ‘em were boarding for Christmas travel.”
“I can’t believe it,” Paméla said, slowly shaking her head back and forth.
“Yeah, me either. Anyway, if you still want to go, let’s go. I’ll sleep in the car.”
December 29th.
Four days later. Danny, shirtless and barefoot, was busy digging in the dirt under Grandma Gabriela and Grandpa Roberto’s front porch. He had already discovered three odd-looking bones. They were short and skinny and hadn’t been buried very deep. Now, he was hoping to find some more. Maybe he could even find some large dinosaur bones. Danny loved dinosaurs. He had posters of them hanging up all over his room.
Grandma Gabriela came out of the house and yelled for him to go get Great-Grandma Consuela.
Danny came out from under the porch and ran scurrying across the foot-bridge behind the house, his little legs pumping and his sandy hair bouncing up and down, delighted to have been given the important duty of fetching his great-grandma. “Grandma! Grandma!” he called as he ran. “Dinner time!”
Richie, Paméla, Melody, and Danny were heading back to Base City in the morning. They had spent the last three and a half days visiting Paméla’s parents and grandmother on their family’s farm in Mamantel. Paméla’s parents lived in the big, white, three-quarters-finished farmhouse on the hill. It had been nearly finished for years now, ever since Paméla’s childhood when Roberto had tired of the project and decided that the house was ‘good enough.’ Despite Gabriela’s intermittent nagging over the years, there were still places in the house where the walls were only a frame, others where the drywall had been put up but no plaster, still other places where everything was complete except for the small detail of baseboards. And he had never dug a well on the property. Neither had he ever paid for public water to be installed. So every couple of days, Roberto would have to take the water tank for the house in his truck, drive to town to have it filled, and then bring it back and connect it to the house’s plumbing system for them to have water. God forbid that the truck with the water tank on the back would ever break down! It seemed like all during their stay, Richie had constantly been telling Danny and Melody not to use too much water. Danny didn’t like this, of course, because he was used to taking long showers. He would stand there, letting the warm water spill over him, and think. He would make up stories, or songs, or plan everything that he would do that day. But not here. Here, he had to focus on washing and getting out.
Behind the house and across the stream lay Great-Grandma Consuela’s trailer. Great-Grandpa had died a few years ago. Now, Great-Grandma Consuela only had her deaf but very frisky poodle, Maya, to keep her company.
Danny had only been here to the farm once in his short life, a year after he was born, but if he was shy at meeting his grandparents again, that nervousness had quickly vanished the first day when he met Great-Grandma’s yippy little dog. Grandpa Roberto’s endless supply of Lifesavers candies and Grandma Gabriela’s famous grilled cheese and ham sandwiches had also helped. Grandpa Roberto even taught him how to count to ten in Spanish and Hebrew and had taken him into town in the pick-up truck to fill up the water tank! Yes, by the fourth and final day of their visit, Danny felt as if he had always lived here on the farm and could live here forever.
But just as Danny reached the middle of the bridge leading to Great-Grandma’s, he tripped over an uneven board and went sprawling into the railing at his side. Luckily, he caught himself on the wooden rail. He glanced behind him at the creek below and was pushing himself off the rail when crack! went the railing and Danny felt himself falling again.
Danny started waking up almost three hours later. Through a fog, he could hear his mom, dad, and grandparents whispering. “I’m sorry,” Grandpa Roberto was saying. “I should have redone that ol’ bridge years ago.”
“Dad,” Paméla said, “you’ve already apologized a hundred times. You don’t have to keep saying it,”
“It’s okay,” Richie agreed. “The doctor said he’s going to be fine. We’re just glad you were there to fish him out.”
At the word ‘doctor,’ Danny woke completely. He had mixed feelings about doctors. His doctor, Doctor Mayett, was usually pretty nice, but she made him do uncomfortable things sometimes. He was relieved to find that he was not in a doctor’s office but was instead lying on Grandpa and Grandma’s living room couch. Then, he remembered about the bridge.
“He’s awake!” Melody shouted.
Paméla went over to him and pulled him into herself for a hug. “How are you, baby?” she asked. Danny felt something odd about his mother’s touch on his head. He reached up to explore and felt his mother’s hand catch his and bring it back down. “Don’t touch. It’s okay. It’s just a bandage for your head. You fell off the bridge and bumped it; that’s all.”
Then Grandpa Roberto came over. Danny saw that he had something shiny in his hand. “Hey, tiger!” he smiled. “I’ve got something for you.” Showing Danny the object, he said, “I got this a long, long time ago. You know what it is? It’s my Sheriff’s badge.”
Danny stared at the shiny metal, admiring its points and the fancy raised writing on the circle in the middle.
“Danny, do you know what a Sheriff is?” Richie asked. Danny slowly shook his head back and forth, his eyes never leaving the badge in his hands. “That means your Grandpa here was the top cop around here.
“Like Uncle Jim?” Danny asked.
“Bigger than Uncle Jim,” Richie said. “Your Grandpa would’ve been the Protector General around here!”
“Wow!” Danny said. “You were Protector General, Grandpa?”
“A long time ago I was,” Grandpa laughed. “We don’t call it that around here, of course… But listen; I want you to have it now. Because you’re such a brave boy. Only brave boys can wear a Sheriff’s badge.”
Danny took it eagerly. The light reflected warmly off its surface. Gently, Danny fingered the five even points of the Sheriff’s Star.
“Do you want me to pin it on you, there, Danny?” Grandpa asked.
Danny nodded eagerly, and Grandpa pinned the badge to the breast of his shirt.
December 30th.
The next morning, Danny, along with Melody and his parents, waved goodbye to his grandparents and to the poodle, Maya. As he and Melody climbed into the backseat of the car, Danny looked down to check his new medal of honor. It was still there, proudly displayed over his heart, just as Grandpa Roberto had shown him.
When they were almost to the border, Danny looked up from his cartoons and called, “I have to go to the bathroom!”
Richie glanced at his son in the rearview mirror but didn’t say anything. He hadn’t planned on stopping this soon.
“I have to go to the bathroom!” Danny repeated a few seconds later.
“Number one or number two?” Richie asked.
“Both,” Danny said.
“Can you hold it?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you go before we left?”
“Because I didn’t have to.” Duh!
“It’s okay, honey, we’ll stop,” Paméla said. Then, turning to Richie, “You know he can’t hold it.”
“Fine.” Richie sighed.
A mile down the road, they found a full-service traveler’s station with electrical charging units, bathrooms, a food court, gift shop, arcade, and drug store. Paméla walked Danny to the bathrooms while Richie and Melody went and stood in line for a Coke.
To get to the bathrooms, Paméla and Danny had to go through the maze of tables in the food court. Walking down one of the aisles behind Paméla, Danny passed next to two older kids eating their McDonald’s. It was a boy and a girl, both Mexican, laughing with one another as they ate. Their parents were nowhere in sight. As Danny passed them, he saw the boy point to him and heard him say to the girl in a mocking tone of voice, “Uh-oh, here comes the Sheriff!” and both of them began laughing even harder.
Danny felt his face and ears grow hot with embarrassment. When he got into the stall in the bathroom, he sat pondering what had happened to him. He had expected other kids to think his badge was cool or neat. But those kids had made fun of him for it. Why? People didn’t make fun of Forcepeople, did they? People didn’t make fun of Uncle Jim or his dad.
When Danny came out of the stall, he ‘accidentally’ left Grandpa Roberto’s badge on top of the toilet paper dispenser.
2074. January 2nd.
Three days later. Paméla had home-schooled Danny for the first half of his kindergarten year, afraid of the embarrassment he would suffer if he lost bowel control and had an ‘accident’ at school. After the New Year, though, Richie decided it was time for Danny to go to school and face whatever came to him.
Danny was nervous this first day. There were so many kids and teachers in a building that he didn’t know. But after an hour in class, he began to warm up to the school idea. He was making friends, and he liked his teacher, Mrs. Summer. The class wasn’t too intimidating, either. Maybe school wouldn’t be so bad after all.
But then, half-way through the morning, Danny did have an accident. He had been sitting in a reading group, minding his own business when there it was. He tried to ignore it, tried to pretend that the mess in his pants hadn’t happened, and go on with his day. But some of the other kids started to complain about a smell.
Mrs. Summer, having been warned ahead of time by Paméla, quietly got up from the reading table and asked Danny to follow her. Danny stayed in his seat. He didn’t want to follow her. He knew that the moment he got up, everyone else in the class would be able to see the wet stain on the back of his pants. But what choice did he have? The teacher had told him to go with her, and he knew he couldn’t stay at the reading table all day. So he took a deep breath, stood bravely, and followed her.
Most of the kids in the class began laughing and snickering to one another. A few of the girls, not many, were a little more mature. They sat quietly, feeling sorry for Danny.
In the back of the room, Mrs. Summer pulled a large paper bag out of the storage closet and handed it to Danny. “Your parents left me with some extra clothes for you,” she whispered. “Why don’t you go get changed?” Again, Danny had to walk past the giggling children on his way to the door.
When Danny re-entered the room, all the laughing had stopped. Everyone was completely quiet. Mrs. Summer had talked with the class while he was away. But even though no one said anything, their stares were enough. Forget the fact that what had happened to him was the result of a medical problem. That didn’t matter. He had been branded. He was now the new the kid who had crapped his pants in the middle of class.
2077. May 19th.
Three years later. The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and Richie, carried a shiny, new, metallic-blue bicycle into the parking garage. Paméla was right behind him. “Oh, Richie, he’s gonna love it!” she gushed.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice all right,” Richie replied, as he made his way toward the car. They had brought Paméla’s street-car instead of his Force hovercar. “His old one was getting a bit too small,” Richie said, opening the car’s back door. It was four days before Danny’s ninth birthday. “Blast it!” Richie snapped after a few seconds of trying to fit the bike in through the door.
“What’s the matter?” Paméla asked. “Here, let me help.” She opened the back door on her side and crawled in, grabbing the bike by the front tire. Together, they twisted and turned the bike around enough to fit inside the car.
“Identification, please,” the car requested when it sensed Richie in the driver’s seat. Richie pressed his thumb onto the center of the console. There was no steering wheel, no gear shift or pedals. A green check mark flashed on the console as the car sad, “Identification validated.” A second later, the car started. “Destination?” it asked.
“Home,” Richie pronounced loudly.
“Home,” the car repeated. “Is this correct?”
“Yes,” Richie answered.
“Communicating with satellite,” came the car’s voice. A moment later, it announced that it was, “Commencing,” as the car sped out of the garage.
The car steered itself onto the street in front of the Mall, and Paméla asked, “We’re going to drop this off at home and then go pick up the kids, right?”
“Yeah,” Richie replied. “Unless you want us to have a little alone time before they get back.” He grinned and reached over to give her thigh a playful squeeze.
Smiling, she said, “Now, you stop it. I told Doranne we’d be back by nine.” But she did not remove his hand, a hand that was slowly moving upward.
“Aw, come on, she can keep ‘em a little longer. You know Danny and Melody like hanging out with Eric.” And he leaned over and kissed her.
She kissed him for a moment, but then pulled away. “No, mister. You’re going to have to wait,” and she took his hand in hers.
“Hmmph!” he said, accepting his defeat.
A second later, Paméla yelled, “Richie!”
Richie looked up at the road in front of him.
Normally, the satellites would safely navigate all of the street-cars from one destination to the next at speeds of over a hundred miles an hour. It was incredibly efficient. Allowing the satellites to remotely control the cars instead of human drivers had nearly eliminated all hazards to driving.
Right now, though, a wall of cars, smashed and burning, lay on the highway directly ahead of them. They watched in disbelief as the cars in front of them rammed into the pile. Then it was their turn.
A minute later, emergency sirens pierced through the normal Base City noise. The evening news announcer interrupted Doranne’s television program as he narrated events with live images of the highway. “Something has gone wrong with the satellite navigation system!” the announcer said breathlessly. “You’re seeing I-93 right now, directly north of the Market Street exit! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Cars keep colliding! The drivers are powerless to stop it! Oh, no! Our eyes in the sky have informed us that it’s not only the highway! Something is horribly wrong! All over Hemmle County, cars are going out of control! Why won’t somebody do something?... Okay. My director has given me a notice from SkyForce. Let me read it here... Okay. They’re ordering everyone to stay off the road and to stay in your homes unless you are government personnel and have access to a hovercar. That’s right. Please, people, I know you’re worried about your loved ones right now, but do not go looking for them! Please stay off the road!”
Doranne stared at the screen, tears filling her eyes. She could hear the sound of Eric, Danny, and Melody playing in the backroom as the announcer continued. “We’re getting reports from our affiliate stations that the same thing is happening all over the country. A group calling themselves Allah’s Fist is taking credit for the catastrophe. You’ll remember, of course, that this is the same group behind the recent assassination attempt on the President and the country-wide airport attacks four years ago.”
It was only a few seconds later when Doranne saw the cars on the highway, those speeding toward the wreckage, suddenly stop. The newscaster explained, “Oh, thank God! The cars are stopping! I repeat; the cars have stopped! SkyForce has disabled the satellites! Who knows how many lives this has taken? I can’t believe it! Stay with 3 News for continuing coverage of this awful event. If you have any information on members of the group, Allah’s Fist, please contact any branch of the Force immediately.”
Doranne muted the television and picked up her cell. She ordered it to dial Jim’s number and waited while it went to his voice mail. He was probably talking to someone else. She hung up, knowing that he would be too busy to call her back. Then, she called both Paméla and Richie’s numbers. She hoped they were okay, hoped they were still at the Mall, shopping for Danny’s present. But they didn’t answer, either.
Doranne kept Danny and Melody there with her that night, lying to them, saying that their parents had called and asked if they could spend the night.
May 20th.
That evening, Doranne had to sit the kids down and tell them what had happened. She had rehearsed saying it enough to herself that she thought she would be able to stay calm, but as soon as she started speaking, she began to cry again. “Danny, sweetie, Melody, your mom and your dad are gone. They died in a car wreck.”
They had seen car wrecks in old movies but hadn’t heard of one happening in their lifetime. Danny broke down crying, and Eric cried with him. Melody hung her head and wondered who she would live with next. Aunt Peggy, probably.
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