Edited by Rebecca Rue & Chelsea Cambeis Proofread by Grace Nehls Scripture (Jeremiah 17:7-8) taken from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture (Jeremiah 17:8) taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Trailer Baby Copyright Š 2020 Kathryn Sanoden Pearson All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954358 ISBN: 978-1-64397-073-8 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-64397-145-2 (Softcover) ISBN: 978-1-64397-146-9 (Ebook) For information, write: BHC Press 885 Penniman #5505 Plymouth, MI 48170
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Trailer Baby
Chapter THE LITTLE
1
chimes caught the light and shimmered, tinkling when Cary pushed open the glass door lettered with the promising words: “Healing Restoration and Assistance for Couples, Families, and All.” Today, they made her wince. She strode through the waiting room, past the coffee table topped with untouched magazines, all neatly fanned out. Isobel had stacked a pile of mail on the wide oak desk in Cary’s office, which matched the richly colored wood of the large swivel chair. The chair and desk had been a gift from her husband, Ben, who’d even picked out the overstuffed burgundy cushions, which she suspected contributed to the backaches she got, sitting hour after hour in that chair. She scooped the pile of mail into an environmentally-friendly, recyclable bag to pore through later. She used to be thrilled seeing the checks made out to her just for talking to people but now the energy it took just for listening, made her wonder if it was worth it. As she flipped open her daily planner and eyed the clients scheduled for the day, her brain replayed a moment with her daughter from the night before. She had given it a good effort, hadn’t she? Despite her exhaustion, she’d made an attempt to go and connect with Cessna. First, she had knocked on the closed bedroom door. Then she’d tried to open it up a crack, but before she could peek in, Cessna blocked her entrance from the inside. “Just go chill in the tub, Mom—like you usually do,” her fifteen-year-old had hissed, before slamming the door. Now, as she readied her mind for the day, she steeled herself to be a fount of wisdom. If a client recounted a similar story about an impossible teen, she would recite her little lecture on how the adolescent brain works,
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how parents can take the broader view, and how there just might be something going on with the teenager that needed teasing out, with love and patience. But had Dr. Cary Taylor taken her own advice last night? No, she had not. Instead, she shouted something—she couldn’t remember what—and retreated with her wine to the blissful peace of her bathroom, already filling with steam from the hot water flowing into the whirlpool bath. This morning, there hadn’t been an opportunity to set things right. The sun was already higher than she wanted it to be when she woke and found everyone gone. Her lovely office, with the framed print of a stand of silver birches and green foliage, did nothing to lighten her mood. She wandered into the empty waiting room, glancing at the cover of the newest Parents magazine, which had a feature on how to manage toddler rebellions. In her opinion, dealing with toddlers was a piece of cake compared with adolescents, particularly her own adolescent. The latest issue of Best Doctors in Chicago caught her eye. Isobel had once been featured in it as a top therapist. Even if by some oddball chance she ever made it in, Cary knew her daughter wouldn’t be impressed. She had six appointments scheduled for that afternoon and evening, and her three o’clock was a new client—a crisis referral from Memorial. Her anxiety level rose a bit as she read the discharge summary she’d plucked from the fax machine, which stood in a repurposed closet next to Isobel’s office. The woman had been discharged from the hospital following a suicide attempt. She had overdosed on sleeping medication and had remained in the hospital for about forty-eight hours after she was admitted. Her son had called an ambulance when he wasn’t able to rouse her. Cary sighed when she read the woman’s address. She lived in Swallowtail Court—a tightly spaced community of trailers on the east side of Flanders. Everyone, including the residents, called it “The Court,” for short. Lately, Cary had been getting a slew of these referrals, mostly white women on welfare. Her last intake, and the one before that, both told sad stories about problematic men they were involved with. Advising them to simply get rid of the men wouldn’t be an efficacious treatment plan, however tempting that was. She just didn’t know how to help these people.
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With slumped shoulders, she backed out of the copy room, turning toward her office when Isobel’s door opened. Her client made her way like a barge through the waiting room. When she had successfully exited, Isobel held out her arms out toward Cary, her wooden bangles clacking like castanets. Her silky white hair was already slipping out from under the grasp of a giant tortoiseshell clip that struggled to keep it in check. “You look like you need a hug today,” she said, moving in. “Maybe I do.” Cary pursed her lips and hugged her colleague. How Isobel could read moods so instantly and accurately completely mystified her. “I have a theory,” Cary said, stepping out of the hug and waving in the direction the client had gone. “It seems like these women—the ones from The Court, anyway—are either anorexically skinny or obese. She’s from there, right?” Isobel stared at her over the top of her glasses. “The issue, my dear, as you know”—she paused for emphasis—“is poverty. There’s so much going on in their lives that they can’t control. And then, of course, there are teeth issues.” She put her hands on her hips. “Or there’s the meth.” She looked Cary in the eye. “But you know all of this.” Isobel reached to pat her on the shoulder. “You okay today, honey?” She wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t just about her clients. She didn’t mean to sound heartless about these women from The Court, but the words had just popped out. “Actually, we’re having trouble,” she began. “With Cessna.” She consciously used we to make it more generic, more of a family thing, not just something involving her. “Her moods are all over the map,” she added. “Ah,” said Isobel, nodding. “The joys of adolescence. Tough.” Then she said the kind of thing her clients loved her for: “She cherishes you more than she knows. You’ll work it out.”
Chapter
2
LILY GANSER popped her right eye open, but the left one, sticky with sleep, took longer to clear. Her foggy brain couldn’t immediately place the day, but the sound of spoons clinking against cereal bowls indicated that she was close to sleeping through breakfast with her kids again. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t hear in the flimsy trailer. Jeremy must’ve gotten the girls up quietly for school in an effort not to disturb her. Planting first one foot, then the other on the worn carpet, she steadied herself against the bed. This headache was different from a normal hangover. Twisting her head from side to side, she felt something heavy in the back of her skull. At the hospital, they told her that dizziness was a side effect of the antidepressant, so maybe that explained it. A cigarette would help, she thought. When she reached for the cigarette pack on top of a pile of papers on the dresser, a sheet fluttered to the floor. Typed in boldface was an appointment reminder: 3:00 PM, September 24, 2004. Her eyes landed on the calendar beneath the image of a golden retriever catching a Frisbee in midair. Counting off a week from last Tuesday, the day she’d been discharged, she wondered if today was Thursday, the twenty-fourth. Grabbing her terrycloth robe, she tottered into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She’d show them how much better she was. She’d get up and get dressed. But first, she needed a smoke. After lighting her cigarette with several clicks of an almost empty lighter, she inhaled deeply and surveyed the narrow bathroom. The countertop was cluttered with hairbrushes, headbands, a spray bottle, and earrings. The mirror reflected bluish-gray smoke
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drifting downward. The only evidence of male existence was a can of her son Jeremy’s shaving cream, a bright blue bead of foam stuck to its nozzle. He had developed early and started shaving seriously at age sixteen, two years ago. That was around the time Randy moved in with them. Lily turned on the fan. “Mom!” Sharp knocks, three in a row, rattled the thin door. “What?” Lily yelled, her muscles tensing. “You okay in there?” “Yeah, I’m fine. Be right out.” Sighing, she mashed her cigarette in the black plastic ashtray that used to say “Las Vegas” in gold lettering. The knob turned, and Jeremy whipped open the door, banging it against the folding closet door that was off its track. “The girls are eating,” he said. His eyes darted around the bathroom, probably itching to check the medicine cabinet for her meds, just to make sure. Stepping around her, he peeked into the wastebasket. All three of them watched her closely since she had gotten home from the hospital. Crystal, who used to jump out of bed every morning, excited to go to kindergarten, now stuck to her side like glue. Heather, her sixth grader, did the opposite. She avoided her. Lily reached up to touch her son’s cheek. Thick, shaggy dark hair set off his gray, almond-shaped eyes. He was handsome, no matter what expression was on his face. Today, he looked worried. “You’re a good boy, you know?” she said. He shrugged. “Why’re you up?” She wanted to reassure him that she was going to be okay, that they would be fine—if not better—without Randy. “I got an appointment. Counseling. I need the car this afternoon, so you guys’ll have to ride the bus home.” Jeremy closed the door then without a word. If he needed the car today, he would have let her know. When Randy lived with them, they didn’t have to juggle the car, but if Randy’s truck was the only thing she missed, they’d survive. She splashed water on her face, dabbing at it with a towel. The nicotine had helped her head a little. In the bedroom she pulled on fleece pants and reached for a sweatshirt draped over the back of a chair. Straightening
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her shoulders she made her way into the kitchen. Her daughters, both of their heads down, slurped up the last of the milk from their cereal bowls. Crystal’s eyes brightened when she saw Lily, and she grinned underneath a milk mustache. Before anyone could stop her, she picked up the unwieldy jug of Sunny Delight. “Here’s some juice for you, Mom,” she said, and began to pour the liquid into a glass. But the gallon jug was too heavy for her, and it tipped, spilling the neon-colored juice. “You idiot! You can’t handle that!” screamed her older sister, jerking back away from the table and the orange cascade. “Don’t be yelling at her. It was an accident,” Lily said, but stood there frozen as Jeremy grabbed a dishtowel to sop up the sticky mess. Crystal stuck out her lower lip and blinked back tears. “It’s okay, baby. You didn’t mean to,” Lily cooed, wrapping her arms around her. She wanted to hug Heather too, but she had darted out of the kitchen. Heather always moved fast, but lately, she seemed supercharged to stay out of Lily’s way. Jeremy eyed her stringy hair. “You’ll be okay getting to your appointment?” “As good as ever,” said Lily. “Your ma’s turning a new leaf.” He raised his eyebrows and yelled, “C’mon, girls. Let’s go.” Grunting, Crystal shoved her arms through the straps of her bright yellow backpack, and Heather avoided eye contact while Lily walked through the compact trailer, searching for her purse. “Let’s go, Sophie girl,” Lily said to the cat as she slung her bag over her shoulder. The jet-black cat dashed out the front door ahead of her and disappeared into the gap underneath the rickety wooden steps. Sophie was a scrawny black kitten when she appeared one Halloween, back when Heather was about three. The kitten had shown up on their landing with a group of trick-or-treaters but never followed anyone home. They had Ray, the girls’ father, to thank for the cat because he let them keep her after the handwritten signs she’d posted on telephone poles had gone unanswered. She had wanted to name her Midnight, but Heather insisted on calling her
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Sophie-Kitty, so the name stuck. As Lily descended the steps, her youngest daughter screeched. “Ow, you slammed my finger!” Crystal yanked on the front passenger door of the 1995 Ford Taurus and glared at her sister through the window. Lily reached for Crystal’s hand. “Where? Let me see.” It didn’t look at all damaged. “This one?” She scrutinized each finger. Heather, sitting in the front seat, shook her head, her dark hair swinging around her face. “No way,” she shouted through the glass. “Well, she almost did,” Crystal said, rolling her eyes. “Just get in. We have to go,” Lily ordered, pushing Crystal into the back seat. Jeremy sat behind the wheel, drumming his hands on it as Lily strode around and rapped on the window. “I’m driving,” she said. He rolled the window part way down. “If I drive, we’ll get there on time for sure.” Heather chimed in. “Yeah, we won’t be late then.” Lily didn’t budge. “Look, I can drive.” Jeremy stared at her for a couple of seconds and then, without comment, got out and jumped in the back with Crystal. Moving over as far as she could get from Lily, Heather turned on the radio at full blast and bobbed up and down to the angry shouts of some rapper. “Turn that off. That’s not good for you,” Jeremy said from the back seat. Heather’s lip curled up, but she switched the station to V103, and Michael Jackson’s high voice soared through the car. Lily couldn’t remember the last time Heather had done anything she asked her to.
Chapter
3
THE SILVERY peal of the Tibetan chimes—Isobel’s treasures—sang out, announcing the arrival of Cary’s new client. She jumped up from where she’d been sitting in front of her desk and rushed into the waiting room, catching whiffs of tobacco smoke, along with the greasy smell that seemed to permeate the clothing worn by residents of Swallowtail Court. Her client was neither overweight nor too thin, and Cary thought she was beautiful, even with those tired, puffy bags under her eyes. She reached out to shake the woman’s hand and asked if her name was Lily Ganser. Lily nodded with a small smile. “Oh good. You found us okay?” Cary asked, smiling. Lily nodded again. Cary introduced herself by saying, “I’m Dr. Cary Taylor.” To make Lily feel more at ease, she added, “Before we go into my office, would you like something to drink?” She waved her arm toward the counter, where there were tea bags, hot water, and a single-serve coffee maker. Lily held up a can of pop. “Okay if I drink this in there?” she asked. “Of course,” replied Cary, ushering Lily into her office. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” She asked Lily for her insurance card and then went to make a copy of it. On her way back to her office, she resigned herself to listening to another sad story. Lily chose the burgundy accent chair rather than the loveseat and perched on it, crossing her legs. “Have you ever done this before?” Cary asked. Lily immediately dropped her head.
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“I mean counseling,” Cary clarified, realizing that Lily thought her question was about the suicide attempt. She would have to broach that topic later, but for now, she wanted to put Lily at ease and explain some things about the first session and she had to appear approachable for it to work at all. Lily’s face relaxed a bit. “I’ve been before,” she offered. “Okay, good,” said Cary, nodding like a bobblehead, hoping to hear more without sounding like she was grilling her. When Lily didn’t continue, she probed a little further. “So you already know that I’ll ask you a bunch of questions, this first time, to get to know you better?” Lily flipped the top on her soda can and took a swallow, raising her chin. “It was Jeremy I went with. He was getting such an attitude before I decided to leave the girls’ dad.” “Oh,” said Cary smiling encouragingly. “That counselor wanted me to come in on my own after I found out that Jeremy was going to be okay.” She paused and settled in deeper into the chair. “But it was really hard. I had no one to leave the girls with. I didn’t want to leave ’em with Jeremy all the time.” Cary nodded. She had heard similar stories. She didn’t even want to ask details about the ex—or was it exes? She tried not to sigh. She’d find out soon enough. Over the next forty-five minutes, Cary learned that Lily had a teenage son, who was the product of a brief high school relationship and was born when she was eighteen. She married the father of her two younger daughters but left him when his alcoholism and abuse got to be too much. Cary noticed Lily’s eyes soften every time she talked about her kids. Lily shared about her struggles as a single mom, and how she’d just recently gotten out of another relationship. This seemed to lead to the overdose and hospitalization. Apparently, she and this man had argued—Lily didn’t say about what—and then he stormed out of the trailer. Lily said she drank some beers—she didn’t say how many—and took extra trazodone. Her son found her passed out on the bed, the pill bottle on the nightstand. When he couldn’t wake her, he called an ambulance. “So you weren’t suicidal? No thoughts of ending your life?” Cary asked.
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Lily tilted her head, eyes narrowed. “Overdosing on trazodone, I meant.” She hoped that Lily would reassure her, and that she didn’t have to worry about this client being suicidal. “I mean, it doesn’t sound like you were feeling hopeless,” she added. “Oh Lord, no. I’d never kill myself,” said Lily before swallowing some more soda and setting the can on the floor. “My kids are my life. He got me a little crazy, and I guess I just went too far.” She shrugged and shook her head. “Maybe it was the beer.” “The beer?” asked Cary, her pen poised over her notepad. She wondered if she should pursue this further but decided to let it go for now. Lily sighed. “I just wanted some sleep.” She waved her hand. “Of course I didn’t want to kill myself. This just got way out of hand.” “Okay, good enough,” said Cary, nodding and writing “no suicidal intent” on her notepad. She looked up to see Lily eyeing her. “I believe you. So, what did they tell you at the hospital?” “No mixing sleeping meds and alcohol, that’s for sure.” “Right,” said Cary, nodding. “A dangerous combination.” Lily grew more talkative as her comfort level increased. “He didn’t so much as visit me in the hospital, so we’re done. I’m better off now, I think— except we got a lot less to work with. My Jeremy, he has to help out more with his paychecks.” Lily said all this in a rush, then added, “Actually, all of his paychecks. He’s a good boy.” She raised her eyes to look directly at Cary. A challenge, of sorts, it seemed. Cary wondered if she hadn’t responded positively enough about Lily’s son. She had been distracted for a minute, thinking about her own son, Jay, who didn’t have to be gainfully employed after school and whose father totally immersed himself in his sports life. Lily’s son didn’t seem to have male role models in his life. Or if he did, they weren’t positive, like Ben was to Jay. “Your son sounds like a fine boy,” she said. “Oh, he is,” said Lily, beaming. Cary wrapped up the session by rescheduling Lily for the next week and giving her some crisis numbers to call if she did find herself thinking about suicide.
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“Next week, we’ll make a treatment plan—things for you to work on to help you feel better,” she told her. After Lily left, Cary scribbled some notes in the file before slapping it shut. She needed to spend more time typing up a formal diagnostic assessment, but she couldn’t bear to do it now. It would require reliving the session, and she was spent. She wrote down the highlights of what she’d learned during the session and would rely on her memory to finish the rest later. In regard to whether she could be truly helpful to Lily or not, the rule of thirds she’d learned in graduate school was becoming a mantra: without any mental health intervention, a third of the people in crises got better, a third got worse and a third stayed the same. She hoped Lily’s prescribed antidepressant worked for her, because that would be helpful in reducing her symptoms of depression—the diagnosis she was going to give her. Actually, having that man out of her life might also help—that is, if the family could survive on the little they had. She stood up and stretched the tightness in her back. Maybe her chair wasn’t as ergonomically correct as she had thought when she first got it. Thinking of role models made her dread the prospect of going home to face her own cranky daughter. She doubted Cessna thought of her as a positive role model, because lately, every conversation they had turned into an argument. There was no telling what kind of mood she’d be in today, and they’d probably argue about food. Cessna’s latest craze involved eating raw things. Maybe filling the refrigerator with fruit and veggies would help. She retrieved her purse from the cabinet, clicked off the light and headed out. Isobel’s throaty laugh escaped from behind her closed door. She couldn’t understand how she and her clients actually seemed to have fun together.
•••• CARY WALKED
through the sweeping doors of Knight’s, the grocery store with the freshest produce and best deli in town. Professionally dressed people pushed carts briskly through the aisles, intently pursuing their dinner choices. She loaded up her cart with carrots, red and yellow peppers, lettuce, apples, bananas, oranges, mangoes, and a pineapple. Dropping in a bag
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of almonds, she wondered if Cessna would disapprove because they were dry roasted. She worried about her getting enough protein, but her daughter had become dead set against the killing of animals. Cary had seen her eyes well up with tears when they passed a deer, lying mangled by the side of the road. She had chosen Cessna’s name to signify soaring and flying. Shortly before her birth, she’d been giddy with proud accomplishment, having just completed her doctoral thesis. Research on her topic, “The Effects of Maternal Deprivation in Teenage Pregnancies in Low Socio-Economic Families” showed the obvious: babies born to young mothers with fewer resources didn’t do as well. Now she wished she had researched adolescent girls and what caused some of them to totally reject their mothers. Cary thought she was in the shortest checkout line, but the woman in front of her had stopped the flow. There was some kind of problem involving her food assistance card. Cary usually didn’t notice many welfare folks shopping at Knight’s. Holding the SNAP card, the cashier said, “I’ll try it again and see if it takes this time.” The woman clutched her purse, and Cary wondered if it was a real or a fake Coach. Frozen shrimp, Camembert cheese, water crackers, gourmet olives and Greek yogurt piled up at the end of the conveyor belt as the woman stared beyond the cashier. Cary wondered what circumstances brought the woman to use government resources. She thought about how her husband, Ben, reacted, when he suspected that people were taking advantage of the system and was glad that he wasn’t in line with her. The next lane opened up, so she wheeled her cart over and never saw how the scenario worked out.
•••• “ANYBODY HOME?” Cary called out, lugging in the first two bags of groceries and dropping them on the expansive center island. No one answered, but she thought she could hear music booming upstairs. One of the reasons she and Ben had chosen this house—their dream home—was because of the excellent sound barriers. Their previous house was a twin home that shared a wall with the neighbors on the other side, and it had been
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noisy, especially with babies crying in the night. Both families had young children, so they were all in the same boat. That was before Ben started making real estate investments that paid off handsomely. Now bedroom doors could be closed in their 4,000-square-foot home and very little sound escaped from behind them. Though Cary wasn’t sure that was a good thing, given the current state of disconnection in their home. She wrestled the last two bags out of her car. It was possible that Cessna would approve of today’s purchases, and they could have a decent conversation for a change. Cessna breezed into the kitchen. “Anything I can eat?” she asked as Cary crouched on her hands and knees in front of the refrigerator, shoving produce into the overloaded bins. “Yeah, I picked out a lot of fruit that looked good at Knight’s.” Cary couldn’t tell if Cessna heard her because of her earbuds. “I got a lot of fruit for you,” she tried again, enunciating. “You don’t have to yell. I can hear everything.” Cessna said as she looked critically at the pile of food mounded on the center island. She spied the bag of nuts, snatched it and with a sideways toss, skimmed it across the granite countertop where it skidded off. Cary shook her head, muttering, “Here we go again,” and picked up the small sack. “They’re not raw. They’re roasted,” said her daughter. But then she reached out her hand. “I could probably still eat them.” Dropping the bag of almonds into her outstretched palm, Cary clicked her tongue but kept quiet. “What?” Cessna asked, stuffing a handful of them into her mouth before flouncing down the two steps to the den and plopping on the loveseat, her feet dangling over the armrest. Cessna changed styles as often as she switched her diet, and today, she wore a pair of leggings underneath a mini jean skirt and a T-shirt, with an assortment of chains draped around her neck. Struggling to find something positive about her child in that moment, Cary was just grateful that she wasn’t dressing in all black, like the goth kids. It had been a while since she’d threatened to get facial and body piercings. So
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far, she and Ben had held firm, saying they’d never give permission, but for all she knew, Cessna might already have a hole in her navel. Cary squeezed two jugs of milk, side by side, onto the lower shelf of the refrigerator. Their handles stuck out enough to prevent the door from closing. She pressed her shoulder on the outside to shut it, and their family Christmas photo slipped from under its magnet and fell to the floor. Stooping to pick it up, she stared hard at it. Jay had sprinted back to land next to his sister as the camera on the tripod beeped its ten-second countdown. Minutes earlier, she had ordered Cessna to change her clothes. Cessna complied by zipping a white sweatshirt over her T-shirt with the marijuana leaf on the front. Under the caption “Holiday Cheer from Our House to Yours,” the whole family had managed to smile beautifully. Although Ben’s hand clasped his son’s shoulder, there was a visible gap between Cary and her husband. Nothing touched. With the groceries stowed away, she supposed she could heat up the deli food she’d picked out. Cessna wouldn’t look at the rotisserie chicken, but there were plenty of salad fixings to offer. She stepped into the den and sat on the leather couch opposite the loveseat where her daughter lay sprawled. “You want me to make you a salad? There are a lot of greens.” Cessna’s eyes remained firmly shut, and her topknot of messy curls shook as she nodded. Finally, a positive reaction. But then she popped her head up from the armrest. “Don’t take this as me approving of all of your suggestions,” she said. Cary turned her head before she rolled her eyes. Everything she told her clients about adolescent behavior was true. Sometimes, you couldn’t even breathe the right way for them. Ben’s solid footsteps tromping into the kitchen interrupted her train of thought. “Okay, I’ll go wash the lettuce,” she said, looking at Cessna, who was nodding her head in time to some music she was listening to. In the kitchen, Ben grasped a beer in one hand and in his other held the local paper, The Flanders Weekly Star. “Hi, hon,” said Cary, walking toward him. They shared a brief hug. “How’re you doing?” She could tell he was riled up about something.
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“No wonder our taxes keep going up,” he said. He slapped the paper on the island. “Listen to this: there have been five times as many 911 calls to The Court as there have to the rest of Flanders and its surrounding area.” Cessna must have been listening. She appeared from the den, earbuds no longer plugged in. “So?” she asked. Ben picked up the paper and scanned it. “The mayor didn’t come right out and say it, but you know he’s going to ask for more police coverage.” “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Cessna persisted. “Not if our taxes keep going up”—his voice grew louder—“to pay for someone else’s problem!” “Let me see that.” Cessna grabbed the paper from him and traced her index finger over the article. “You can’t just blame everything on The Court,” she said. Ben took a swallow of beer and then tried to hide a belch. “It says right there. The Court is the main problem.” “You’re so quick to blame people that you don’t know anything about,” said Cessna before stuffing her earphones back in. “Well, what do you know?” Ben asked her. Cary held up her hand and shook her head at him as Cessna stomped out. “What’s up with her?” Ben asked. “Hormones?” “I don’t know. Maybe she’s not eating enough protein,” said Cary. This time the fight didn’t have anything to do with her, which should have been reassuring. “Whatever,” said Ben, tipping his head back to savor another draught of beer.
About the Author Raised in Japan by culturally sensitive missionary parents, Kathryn Sanoden Pearson learned to speak Japanese the same time she learned to speak English. After high school she moved to the United States for college, got married, and became a Licensed Psychologist. Together she and her husband raised three sons who are all married, and now finds great joy in their eight grandchildren. She loves sushi, ramen, chocolate and a great cup of coffee. She and her husband live in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota.