House Arrest (8 page)

Emily’s voice was matter-of-fact. This is so ordinary to her. “None of that is usual to us,” Pippa said. “We think having babies is natural, something you do at home with your family. Not a disease that needs doctors and tests and hospitals.”

•

Dr. Zabernathy was tall and pale. And female.

“Good morning. I’m Barbara Zabernathy.” Her voice was gruff.

“Pippa Glenning.” Pippa shook the offered hand, trying to gauge its size and roughness, to guess how much it would hurt. The doctor nodded to Emily before sitting at the desk and opening the file. As if she already knew about Emily’s role as nurse or babysitter. Or jailer.

The doctor opened the thin manila folder. “Let’s see. You’re single. First baby was a home birth. Any problems with the labor or delivery?”

Pippa shook her head. “No,” she said, grateful that Dr. Zabernathy didn’t seem to be surprised or disgusted.

“Your daughter died?” The bad-taste look started to appear around the doctor’s mouth, a slight tightening of muscles.

“An accident.”

The doctor glanced over at Emily, who was standing out of the way but close enough to count. Maybe her presence in the room reminded the doctor, who nodded and stood up.

“You’re fifteen weeks by dates.” Dr. Zabernathy handed Pippa a folded paper gown. “We’ll confirm that with the exam. You get ready and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’ll leave while you change.” Emily followed the doctor out of the room.

Were they going to talk about her? Pippa undressed quickly and stood next to the door, straining to hear their voices. Nothing. She sat on the hard exam table in the flimsy paper gown, studied the clock on the wall. Ten-fifteen. Would there be time to stop at Forest Park on the way home? Would Emily agree? Worrying made her queasy and she crossed her arms over her belly.

“You ready?” Dr. Zabernathy asked, sticking her head in. Without waiting for an answer, she strode into the room followed by Emily and another nurse. Emily moved close to Pippa, sliding into the narrow space between the exam table and the wall. The office nurse helped Pippa scoot down on the table until her bottom was hanging half off, and position her legs wide open, skin against cold metal troughs.

Not ready at all. The doctor loomed between her knees. Pippa focused on her thick wool socks, glad she didn’t have to take them off. If these people didn’t look too closely, they might not notice the bulge over her ankle. As the doctor’s gloved hand slipped inside, Pippa hugged herself harder, hands tucked into her armpits for comfort.

Filleted open. Like the catfish her father used to catch in the river and bring home for Ma to gut on the back porch and fry up for supper. Remembering the smell made her stomach clench. Or maybe it was the doctor’s hand pushing, fingers poking inside and outside, trapping her flesh between the two. She closed her eyes and tried to make her thoughts go blank. But the rolling sick feeling was worse, so she stared at the fetal development poster taped to the ceiling. The drawings of the baby growing in the womb looked pretty fishy too, and her insides somersaulted again.

A row of laminated notices were taped to the wall under the clock: Insurance may not cover the new ThinPrep test. Please tell the nurse if you’re latex allergic. Three reasons why all pregnant women should have the Triple Screen.

“What’s the Triple Screen?” Pippa asked.

“A blood test.” Dr. Zabernathy looked at the ceiling as she prodded.

The doctor’s eyebrows joined in the center of her forehead. Wasn’t that supposed to mean that she was smart or sexy or something?

“To rule out birth defects,” the doctor continued, “like spina bifida and Downs. We’ll do it the week after Thanksgiving, same day as the ultrasound.”

Spina bifida? Wasn’t that what Emily’s cousin had? But Pippa couldn’t think about that. This doctor’s exam was as different from Miriam’s approach as Pippa could imagine. Or maybe her hands were just bigger. When the doctor pushed a gloved finger into her ass and pushed halfway to her heart, Pippa thought she’d die of embarrassment. You’ve had worse, she told herself sternly, but it didn’t help. She closed her eyes and heard herself whimper. At the touch of a hand on hers, she looked into Emily’s brown eyes.

“Breathe slowly,” Emily whispered. “It’s almost over.”

Pippa looked at Emily and nodded, took a deep full breath and exhaled slowly.

Dr. Zabernathy stripped off the soiled gloves and tossed them into the metal can. “Your blood and urine are fine today. You’re a robust young woman and your baby seems healthy. I’ll see you again after the ultrasound.” She opened the door and turned away. “When you’re dressed, my nurse will talk with you about diet.”

Outright rudeness would be easier to hate. Emily’s crooked smile told Pippa that she felt the same way.

In a windowless office that made her think of Tian in jail, Pippa listened to the office nurse explain the food pyramid, pointing with the eraser of her pencil to brightly colored pictures of meat and vegetables and fruit on a laminated poster.

Pippa cleared her throat. “I think eating flesh is disgusting.”

“Your baby needs protein to grow normally.” The nurse crossed her arms over her chest. “It is very difficult to get the right balance of amino acids without animal protein.”

Pippa crossed her arms too. She could not budge on this issue. Emily sat quietly. Did she disapprove too?

Emily broke the silence. “Pippa is a vegetarian. I’ll work with her on diet, if you can’t.”

The office nurse pulled a pamphlet from the bottom desk drawer. “This is a vegetarian pregnancy diet. Follow it carefully.” She handed Pippa the paper and stood up.

They walked back to the parking structure. “I don’t think that lady appreciated my opinions about diet,” Pippa said.

“That eating flesh was disgusting?” Emily grinned. “We can talk more about diet next Wednesday.”

“You come every Wednesday?”

“Yup.” They climbed the stairs of the parking structure. “Next week is extra busy because of Thanksgiving, but I’ll be at your house around eleven.”

Thanksgiving already. It wasn’t an Isis holiday, but they had all grown up with it and missed the feast. Last year they created their own harvest celebration with a tofu-bird and Tian wrote special chants for the occasion.

They returned to the car in silence. Pippa scratched at the crook of her elbow and pulled off the Band-Aid from the blood test, rolling it into a small pink ball. She turned sideways in her seat to face Emily. Now was the time, before she started driving.

“Emily.”

“Yeah?”

“I need a favor.”

Emily looked at her. “What is it?”

“Say yes.”

“Tell me what first.”

Pippa pushed the words past the tightness in her throat. “Take me to Forest Park?”

Emily didn’t answer. She looked down, as if she were searching her lap for advice. Her hair, so dark it was almost black, fell forward to cover her face.

“Why?” Emily asked. Finally.

“I want to tell you about Abby. Where it happened, so you can understand.”

Pippa hadn’t been back to the park. She wasn’t stupid; she had understood right away that Abby was likely dead. She could imagine what probably happened, how the two toddlers must have woken up in the snowy wonderland and wandered off to play. Terrence had loved to take Abby’s hand and lead her on adventures. But as long as there were no bodies, she had been able to hope that someone had rescued her daughter and was taking good care of her. Pippa had never seen the place where the bodies were found.

“I’m supposed to take you right back to your house.”

“Please. It’s been almost a year.” Pippa didn’t have to act, to make her voice quiver. There was no one else to ask. Maybe if Emily understood how it happened, how it felt, maybe there was a chance she might help. And the only way she could understand would be to go there. To the park, to the deep gully.

Emily had to agree.

9 ~ Emily

“Use the back entrance,” Pippa told me.

As we approached the purpling shadow of Forest Park, my hands tightened on the steering wheel until the knuckles blanched. I already regretted agreeing to Pippa’s cockamamie request.

Lighten up, I tried telling myself, borrowing the voice and inflection from Anna, who often criticized me for being too uptight. This is no big deal, just stopping by the park on the way home from a medical appointment, right? And the probation officer expected Pippa to be late, so at most, I was just bending the rules a little, right?

Then why was I terrified?

Following Pippa’s instructions, I parked in front of the last house on the street, just down from the massive arched gate. The park is vast, hundreds of acres bordering the city to the south. As we left the car, I pointed to Pippa’s ankle.

“We have to watch the time. So that thing doesn’t have a conniption fit.”

She threw me a quick look, but I saw it. Pippa was perfectly aware of the time.

“They closed this entrance to cars a few years ago,” Pippa said. “Follow me.”

We walked under the arch and into the forest, silent and still under heavy clouds. Single file along the path for about ten minutes, until we reached a section of older trees, bereft of undergrowth. Our footsteps crunched on the frozen mix of last year’s leaves and pine cones. This was a cold, cold place.

The trail dead-ended at a wall of rhododendron bushes. Now what? The hedge was vast, unbroken, twice our height and stretched as far as I could see in both directions. But Pippa guided me through a narrow cut and we were inside the thick green tangle. We emerged onto a wide track bordered on both sides by the shrubs. The shiny leaves drooped like giant teardrops. Smaller paths forked off, some leading to small clearings.

“I never knew this place existed,” I said.

“Francie showed us. It was designed as a nature trail for blind people,” Pippa said. “The funds ran out and the project was abandoned, but the bushes kept growing.”

“It’s a maze. Don’t you ever get lost?”

Pippa shook her head. “Francie taught us every inch. She grew up in this neighborhood, worked for a school ecology program that used the park for winter survival classes. If you ever come here with her, you’ll see. She’ll rattle off the names of plants like striped pipsipsua and winged euonymus.”

“That’s not too likely,” I said.

Pippa looked at me with that feline head tilt.

“Me coming here with Francie.”

“I guess not. Watch out here.”

We half-slid down a steep hill into a gully with an odd, flat bottom. A perfect circle of flat stones ringed a central fireplace. Around us, the forest formed a natural amphitheater, open to the pewter sky.

“We’re here.” Pippa sat, brushed the leaves off the flat-topped stone next to her, and patted it, looking at me.

So I sat. “What is this place?”

“It’s the Sacred Dingle.”

She must be kidding. I wanted to snicker, but locked the laughter inside my cheeks so I wouldn’t offend her. “Sacred what?”

Pippa gave me this look, almost a grin, as if she knew exactly how dumb it sounded. “Dingle. It means a gully,” she said. “That’s what folks around here call it.”

“Okay. Dingle.” I looked hard at Pippa, but I felt my voice soften. “Tell me. We don’t have much time.”

Pippa squeezed her eyes tight. “This is our holy place. We have our most important rituals here, like the Night of the Teardrop in June, when we remember the world’s pain and yearning. And the winter solstice.” She paused. “This is where Abby died.”

I touched her arm. I wanted to say something, but she kept talking.

“We try to live in harmony with the natural world. We treat each other well. We harbor no hate, even for those who despise us.” Pippa shook her head. “I know it sounds like some simple-minded Sunday school teacher telling first graders about the Golden Rule.” Then she looked at me, her face heavy. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Please. Go on.” I wanted to hear.

“Okay, last solstice. It snowed hard all day, but in the early evening it let up for a while. We left the van a block away so the Park Police wouldn’t be suspicious and come searching for a couple of horny high-school kids.”

Probably right where we parked today, I thought.

“When we got here, we lit the bonfire and all the candles and this place became so magical.” She turned to me and this time her smile was incandescent. “I wish you could have seen it. It was like every fairy-tale palace you ever imagined. Sparkly and safe. A wild ride, but you knew the ending would be happy.”

I tried to smile back. “Go on.”

“Liz and Francie finished preparing the libation. We chanted and then drank.”

“Libation?”

Pippa pursed her lips. “Red wine and honey,” she said. “With ground-up peyote buttons. To transport us from our everyday selves, so we can be fully open to Isis.”

I watched the skeleton trees swaying slightly in the wind. I really wished she hadn’t told me that part.

“Adele stood alone in the inner circle, preparing to dance. She was five months pregnant, but that night she looked way more than that.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “What happens if no one is pregnant?”

“Someone will be pregnant. Someone always is.”

I didn’t get it. Any of it. “But if someone’s pregnant every year, where are all the kids?”

“Three of them were Meg and Enoch’s kids. They left the family.”

“Because of the deaths?”

Pippa frowned. “No, before that, soon after I joined. I don’t know why.”

“Where is Adele’s baby?”

“She lost it a week later. Miscarried.”

Could the libation have triggered a miscarriage? “What happened?”

“They said it was some kind of birth defect.” Pippa sighed. “That’s it. That’s what this ceremony is all about. We have a deal with Isis. Every winter solstice we bring new life and she returns the sun. It’s the most important ritual of the year. Last year Adele was pregnant and danced the mother-dance. This year it’s my turn.”

It sounded to me like Isis didn’t meet her part of the bargain last solstice. What did she tell them, I wondered, about why Adele miscarried, and the two toddlers died. Neither one of us spoke for a minute. I had to ask. I tried to keep my voice kind. “What happened with Abby?”

Pippa sighed deeply, as if she was too tired to finish. “Murphy and I nursed the babies and got them all cozy and warm in the nest of blankets. Right over there.” she pointed, and then looked at me. “Close by and perfectly safe.”

There was a small clearing just off the sacred circle.

“Abby slept. Terrence too. I checked on them. Her mouth made little sucking motions.” Pippa hesitated and I wasn’t sure if she could continue, but she did. “It snowed hard, but they were fine. We danced for hours. When we danced, it was like we were all one person, all living inside one skin, with one enormous heart, and no loneliness. That’s how we honor Isis.”

When she described the dancing, how close they felt to each other, like a rapture almost. I can’t really explain it but for a split second, I think I got it. My throat ached and I had to swallow hard. At that moment, I envied her.

Then I came back to being me. “You left them there alone? In a snowstorm?”

“We were right there. Sleeping with them. When I woke up at dawn, my breasts hurt with milk. I reached for Abby, to nurse her. She was gone.”

Neither one of us said anything, and the wind was silent too.

Finally I asked. “Gone how?”

Pippa buried her face in her hands and spoke slowly, her words pushed out one by one between gloved fingers. “I don’t know. They must have woken up, and wandered off and got lost. Abby had just started walking a couple of months before, and Terrence loved to drag her around like a puppy dog.”

Could that happen? Could those babies wake up and wonder off? Wouldn’t a mother hear them? Maybe not, if that mother was sleeping off a heavy dose of libation.

“By morning the snow was so deep and the blowing was so bad we couldn’t see across the Dingle. No footsteps. No trail. We searched until dark and then every day until Tian made us stop. He said our babies were home with Isis.”

“Didn’t you call the police, to help you look?”

Pippa laughed, a harsh and jaded laugh. “They wouldn’t help us.” Then she shifted her position on the hard stone, to face me. “So do you understand?”

What was she asking me?

Pippa looked impatient. “Do you understand what I have to do?”

“No,” I admitted.

“I have to get out of this Bast-damned ankle device for one night. So I can be here for the solstice. I have to be here. I must dance for Isis.”

I shook my head and then I couldn’t stop shaking it. “After what happened to Abby?”

“That’s why I have to do this. For Abby and this new baby.”

“I don’t understand. How can breaking the law help them?”

Pippa’s voice was stronger now. “I know it sounds so dumb, but I also know this is true. It’s keeping our deal with Isis, no matter what I decide to do afterwards. It’s following through with my promise, instead of running away again.”

Again? I didn’t fully understand her thinking, but I did see how much Pippa wanted this. I wasn’t frightened, not exactly. But then it came to me. Pippa was telling me this for a reason.

She needed something from me.