After_School_Job

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Epilogue

Chapter Eleven

It's very interesting how you think you know what will happen in a given situation, only to find out your expectations turn out to be completely wrong.

Okay. Maybe not completely wrong. They were angry. Sure. And all those phrases about stupidity and throwing our lives away, that I expected to come out of their mouths did, in fact come out of their mouths.

But that's where things went differently than I expected. I suppose to be completely truthful, I didn't know what to expect, but I knew it would be bad, and I knew it would tear us apart.

But that's not what happened. Maybe that was because our parents, being actual adults, instead of teenagers trying to act like adults, got down to deciding what to actually do about the situation. They didn't dither, like we had, or delay, or try to pretend nothing was wrong. They didn't hope for some miracle to undo things. And they loved us like parents should love their children. This was the first lesson I got in how parents can be really disappointed in the choices their children make, but go on loving them anyway.

It was pretty hot and fiery for an hour. That part matched my expectations. But it only lasted an hour, and then came the part that blew us both away, because Mom hugged Addie and Dad hugged me, and we sat down to talk about how all this had happened.

It all came out, of course. I'm quite sure that if they'd have threatened us with the kinds of things we expected them to threaten us with, that we'd have clammed up and given them only name, rank and serial number. But that didn't happen, and the obvious love and concern they showed us disarmed us to the point that we wanted to explain how it had come to be. Or maybe it was that confession is good for the soul thing, just playing out further.

I think, in a sense, that it wasn't until we described to them what I've described to you in this story, that we realized how smoothly we'd been manipulated by Vlad into taking one little step after another down the path of moral turpitude. Not that we thought of it as moral turpitude, exactly, but we all knew everybody else in the world would call it that. And we knew better. Meaning we knew we shouldn't have done any of the things Vlad suggested, such as me helping Addie get dressed, and oiling her up and all that.

Speaking of which, on the level of something that seems pretty wacked out when it happens, but kind of funny later on, our parents demanded details. I don't mean I had to describe what color I thought Addie's nipples were, the first time I saw them, but details about what, exactly, Vlad had taken pictures of and what had happened inside that changing booth. Here's an example of what that sounded like.

"Well, he said the glue on the fingernails would take a while to dry, and that I should help her get into her first outfit for the night. So I did."

"Describe the process for us," said Dad.

"Oh, I had to unbutton her shirt and take her bra off and pull her jeans down ... you know."

"So she took her own panties off," prompted Mom.

"No, I had to take her panties off too. And then I put the bikini on her."

"What kind of bikini?"

So then I had to describe that, and how it was a thong and how I had to push the string in back between her butt cheeks, and tuck in the pubes that were sticking out.

And then Addie said, "Was that the time he made you put baby oil all over me?"

At which point we were off to the races, describing exactly where I put the oil, and whether Vlad told me where to put it or not, and whether he was there while I did that.

But the wacked out part was that they had to keep taking these breaks. Mom would say, "Your father and I need to discuss this," and they'd go off to their bedroom and stay there for ten minutes or so. Then they came back and asked for more. I'm not suggesting they got turned on by any of this, or that they went to the bedroom to relieve that kind of stress. Rather it might well have been that they listened to as much as they could stand, and then just needed a little break or something. I don't actually know. But they were always agitated when they left, and calm when they came back. It just seemed odd then, and kind of fascinatingly funny now.

About the only thing we planned that was right, was the need for an entire day to unpack all the baggage. It took us all day to go over what happened, and how we came to make the decisions we made, which led us to do the things we did.

In the end, our parents found out this wasn't just a one off little accident. They found out their children were passionately in love with each other. And I think the single most important part of all this is that they didn't just decide it was puppy love, or curiosity, and that we were not, in fact, really in love. They didn't suggest that teenagers can't possibly understand what love is, and think (erroneously) that what they feel is genuine. They didn't try to force us out of love.

Of course my parents were pretty smart people. And a smart person might take a look at marriages in the society around him or her, and see that fifty percent of the adults haven't figured out what love is, themselves. If they had, they wouldn't get divorced, or cheat on their spouse and all that. So ignorance of what love "really is", isn't restricted to the young. Nor is the actual thing restricted to adults.

A smart person might look at the sometimes fleeting romances teenagers become involved in, and see those as being very similar to what many adults do as well. It isn't that what the teen feels isn't real. Love is love, and being in love for someone who is seventeen is no different than being in love is for someone who is thirty-three. The difference is that the teen may be less willing to make the sacrifices needed to stay in love for the long haul. And if that teen never learns that one of the primary aspects of true love is the sacrifice it demands we make to our mate ... then they keep going through the motions of falling in and out of love, and become adults who get divorced. That's really what teens are doing ... isn't it? They fall in love ... and get divorced.

If they're lucky, along the way they figure out how to keep falling in love every day, as time changes the person they fell in love with. And if they're really lucky, their mate figures it out at the same time.

Sorry. I didn't mean to go off on a philosophical rant. It's just that when you're as lucky as I've been, you tend to be thankful a lot, and want others to share the wealth.

Anyway, I guess there was one other thing we expected that came true. Not once, that Saturday, or in the months that followed, did either of our parents suggest that a routine abortion might be one avenue to take.

There was significant discussion about what would happen to the baby once it was born. Addie made it quite clear that she wanted to keep the baby, and would be devastated if she could not. And I would have to say that the majority of the angst I had, after we came clean with our parents, was tied up in whether they would make her give it up for adoption or not.

I'm not trying to be dramatic about this. It really was up in the air for the next five months. Basically, what it came down to was that, because we had already exhibited a deficit of good sense and maturity (not physical maturity), the jury was out on whether or not we were capable of being good parents. By good parents, I mean the kind of parents a child deserves.

And that involves tons of sacrifice too. It is love, after all. Or should be. And that was the point. We were put on notice that they would be watching us to see if we were mature enough to take on the responsibility of raising a child. If, in their judgment, we were not, then the child would be offered for adoption to people who, presumably, would make better parents.

That sounds all neat and clear, but it wasn't. There were a number of variables in this system. One of those was that they didn't nag us to do the things we knew we were supposed to do. Some of those were little things, like the chores we'd always been expected to complete, and which they had always had to harp on us to get us to do. The harping stopped.

Then there was the discussion about the danger of problems with incest babies. How would we feel if the baby had a defect? Could we still love it? Would we be willing to take care of it? What if it was so defective that the doctors suggested abortion? What then? We did a ton of research online about that. Or tried to. Turns out there's not a lot out there that has been done under anything even close to the conditions good research is conducted under. There are a lot of anecdotal stories, and references to incest in distant history. Incest, it seems, has pretty much always been swept under the carpet or hidden, instead of being discussed with any effort to learn more about it. These days are no different. There are two camps, those who have assumed nothing good can ever come from incest, under any circumstances whatsoever, and those who feel the opposite. Black, and white.

But Addie and I were as gray as gray can be. We didn't intend to become involved in an incestuous relationship. We didn't intend to make a baby. I didn't force her into anything. Nor did she seduce me on any intentional basis. It just sort of happened. It wasn't black or white at all.

In the end it was Addie's doctor who told her not to worry until he gave her something to worry about. He didn't appear to be worried at all.

Being a doctor must be really interesting. Think about it. Their job is to help people. They labor under strict laws about confidentiality. They have to report some things, like gunshots and rapes. But what if they find out a girl got pregnant by her brother, and that there was no rape involved? What if she seems fine, psychologically? What if the family appears to be dealing with the situation in a healthy way? What if, by reporting this incestuous pregnancy you would be tearing the family apart? What if you've seen more than one pregnancy that you suspected was an incest baby, but had no proof of, and those babies turned out just fine?

Think how much of that you'd have to keep to yourself. You couldn't even tell your wife. Your priest, maybe, in confession, but then he can't tell anybody about it either, now can he? I think it would be almost like being a superhero with a secret identity.

Anyway, the doctor did an ultrasound, and said everything looked normal. The baby's heartbeat sounded normal. He said they'd do more ultrasounds and keep a close eye on things, and that all worrying about it would do was elevate certain hormones in her system that weren't good for either of them.

And, obviously, he didn't tell anybody who the father was, because nobody came knocking on our door.

The medical side of things was the easy part. It was school that was hell.

We should have expected it. In fact, that Saturday, Dad said something about how school might be harder than it was worth, and that he could home school Addie. Mom said no in that tone of voice that brooked no argument. At least not from Dad. Maybe she considered what was going to happen in school to be part of the test of whether we could make it as parents or not. She didn't say.

Addie didn't tell anybody, but of course she didn't have to. We only had three more months of school left, but when you're maybe three months pregnant ... and a cheerleader ... it's impossible to hide the baby bump, even if it's not a big one. And rumors got started, and people wanted to believe them, so pretty soon it was common knowledge that Addison Stapleton, the Ice Queen, the girl no guy could ever get more out of than a few kisses, had been spreading her luscious cheerleader legs for somebody.

Her friends deserted her as soon as she wouldn't tell them who the father was. Her coach adopted the attitude we thought our parents would but, thankfully, had not. It would set a bad example if she were allowed to stay on the squad, or return next year. Sorry.

What took me by surprise was that I wasn't immune. I was also besieged by people, both male and female, all of whom wanted to know who had done the deed with Addison. My stock answer of "How the fuck should I know?" wasn't received with grace. A lot of guys seemed to think that fantasizing about who had done it, and when, and in what setting, would somehow make me feel better. I didn't get in any fights, but I can honestly say the only reason was because I knew that wouldn't come down on the "mature" side of things with my parents.

It wasn't bad enough that kids in general (and a couple of specific teachers) treated Addison like she had leprosy. What hurt her the most was that even our cohorts in crime abandoned us. I'm talking, of course, about Jerry Thompson, Cindy Jenkins, and Kerry and Natalie Watson.

Why they abandoned us became clear when Cindy and Natalie pulled Addison aside in a stairwell one day and asked in a harsh whisper, "Did you tell your parents about Vlad?" She knew they weren't talking about the clothes she had modeled for Vlad. What she was curious about (to say the least) is how they knew she did anything but model clothes for Vlad.

That was how we learned that Cindy had recruited Addison because Vlad paid her extra to find her other models who "might be interested in making a lot of money." Cindy already knew about Kerry and Natalie, of course, because she and Jerry had worked with them, making Vlad's little fairy tale porn flicks. So it wasn't much of a leap of imagination for her to think that the reason Addison was such an ice queen was because her brother was taking care of her needs at home. It wasn't true, but it was what she was able to imagine.

Maybe it was a little prophetic, come to think of it.

Anyway, it had always been Vlad's intent to get us involved in fuck flicks. His whole modeling gig was a cover for finding and grooming underage performers, especially siblings, to get involved in what made him hundreds of thousands of dollars. And when things got kinky, such as when Cindy told him, "The reason Addison quit is probably that she's pregnant," he packed up and disappeared to somewhere else, where it was less likely he'd be the unhappy host of a police raid.

Want to hear something funny? When Addison asked Cindy why she thought we might want to do that kind of thing, and Cindy told her what I explained above, she added, "Plus I wanted to fuck your brother. I think he's a hunk."

That's what destroyed their friendship forever. Cindy never knew it, but Addison couldn't stand the thought of me being in bed with her.

If this is sounding a bit disjointed, I apologize. It's not intentional. It is a byproduct of the fact that our lives were a bit hectic during that time period. You know some of why it was hectic. We were busy coping, and trying to prove to our parents that we deserved to be parents ourselves. But there was something else that happened which caused even more upheaval in our lives.

Mr. Thompson (sorry, I don't know his first name), Jerry's father, listened to some religious radio channel, and I guess there was a commentator one day who said it was a parent's duty to be intimately acquainted with what was on their children's' computers. I gather that porn was mentioned. So Mr. Thompson felt it was his duty to go examine Jerry's computer.

Jerry, it seems, had snuck a flash drive into Vlad's studio and made a copy of the first movie in which he got to fuck not only Cindy Jenkins, but Natalie Watson as well. And, of course, Kerry fucked both girls too.

And Mr. Thompson found it.

We've thanked our lucky stars more than once that he didn't get anything of us, either in still shots or movies. We know this because the police never came to talk to us. That also gave us reason to thank our lucky stars that the other four never ratted us out. That didn't repair things between Addie and Cindy, but we were still very thankful.

It hit the news, of course. I don't think that was Mr. Thompson's intent when he went to the police with the whole computer, demanding that whoever "visited this abomination on my son" be found and prosecuted immediately, but of course something like that is impossible to keep quiet. It didn't help that the police decided they needed to search the rooms of all the "juvenile participants", and showed up with lights blazing, instead of in unmarked cars. But we're a small town fifteen miles from the metropolis the university is in, and we might not even have an unmarked car, for all I know. We certainly don't have high profile juicy sex scandals, which is also probably why it couldn't be kept quiet. Somebody told his wife, who told her friends, and on and on.

Anyway, when that story exploded in the paper, that's when we found out about one of the more difficult decisions our parents had been required to make. Believe it or not, neither Addie nor I thought about the fact that our parents never went after Vlad. Legally, I mean. Thinking back on it, I might not have been surprised to find out my father had murdered him and cleaned out the house and then drove the truck with all the evidence in it into a lake somewhere. I'm kidding. I think. I mean he'd have to have been gone a long time to do that, and I'm sure I'd have noticed that.

But the point is they were faced with making one of two decisions. Report Vlad to the cops, whereupon his studio would be searched, and all the pictures and films we'd made would be confiscated ... and viewed by who knows how many people. That decision would also mean that everyone would eventually learn how Addie had gotten pregnant, and by whom.

The other decision was just as hard to swallow: do nothing about Vlad.

What would you have done? You could seek justice and the protection of many more than just your own kids, but would run the risk of destroying your children. What if Social Services decided you were bad parents, and took your pregnant daughter away from you? What if there were some law that had been violated that meant your son had to go to prison until he was an adult?

Or, you could look at the facts at your disposal and decide that the kids who had gotten involved in this illicit scheme were stupid, but that nobody seemed to have been coerced into anything, or injured in any clearly visible way ... and do nothing about the man who had helped seduce them.

I suppose you could leave a cryptic message on his door, saying, "We know what you do here. You have until noon to get out of town, or we're coming for you."

The point is that none of those are good choices. But you have to make some choice.

So what do you do?

My parents decided to concentrate on salvaging what they could from their children's situation. They chose to concentrate on our mental and emotional health, instead of tilting at the windmills that society might demand they do.

Actually, I don't know about that cryptic note business. It wouldn't actually take much to do something like that. It could be done quickly, in the dark of night, and the risk of capture would be vanishingly small. But the thing is that I can't see my dad doing that. Knowing what kind of skill set he probably still has left over from the Army, and knowing how he must have felt towards Vlad for corrupting his little girl, I just can't see him stopping at putting a note on the door. Now my mother, on the other hand ... I have no problem envisioning my mother marching up to his door and putting something on it that would make him pull up stakes. She would have thought of that as protecting other kids. She's been in a lot of foreign countries, where you had the government, which you had to cooperate with to be there at all, and then had the local elders or whatever, who had their own rules about justice and such.

Anyway, when the shit hit the fan, our parents recognized the possibility that we might get dragged into the whole mess. After all, we had parked the bug behind his house dozens of times, and some neighbor must have seen it there. That would come out in interviews, and someone would try to track down the owner of the vehicle described. And then we'd be interviewed, and just that fact, whether we admitted anything or not, would bring the stain of shame upon us all. I guess they didn't see any good that could come from that, especially since the paper said the mysterious Russian man had disappeared without a trace ...

So they sent us both to Montana for the summer, to work on our Aunt Maureen's horse ranch.

So what else is there to tell you? Let's see.

We got there in the middle of March, so there was only two and a half months of school left. I can't say either of us was happy about going to a new school. Our cover story was that I was her step-brother, and that her mother and my father had been involved in a terrible accident that put them both in the hospital for what was going to be a long time. Maureen, being Addison's aunt, had agreed to take us in until our folks were finished with the operations and rehab and all that would be required before they could be effective parents again.

So the kids in our new school felt sorry for us. And, with Addison's pregnancy clearly showing, she wasn't besieged by guys trying to hit on her. Besides, we only had two months of school left, so we weren't under the same kinds of social pressure we'd have had to endure if we'd stayed back in Hastings.

As for the academic part of things, Addison had it easier than I did, sort of, because they had basically the same classes she'd been in. She was ahead of the game in some cases, and behind in others. But the teachers helped her catch up with some tutoring after school. For me the problem was that their requirements for graduation were slightly different than the school I had left. Montana required, for example, more credits in physical education than Hastings had. I also ran afoul of other requirements that could have required me to either take summer school, or extend my high school education by another semester.

But folks in Montana aren't as "wrapped around the axle", as they say it, as people are in more heavily populated states, when it comes to rules and regulations. They take a more pragmatic view of things. So they put me in a phys ed class when I got there, and the teacher ran me through a bunch of tests, to find out what kind of shape I was in, and by the end of the year he passed me in the course. They had a required class they called "Senior Literature", and I was told I had to pass that or take it in summer school. When they gave me the book, it looked familiar. When Addie saw it after school that day, she said, "What are you doing with my English book?" It turned out what was "Senior Lit" In Montana was Junior English where we had come from. I had already taken the class, or at least used that textbook. So they did some research and called back and forth, and decided I had, in fact, already passed "Senior Literature." But I had to have more credit in English, so they dropped me in Remedial English, where the teacher, who knew what was going on, had me help tutor the other kids and passed me based on that. Speech was similar. When the teacher found out about all my experience in plays and musicals, he agreed to give me the summer school course, but not make me wait until summer to start it. I started that in March, and was able to finish it up two weeks after graduation. They let me graduate, but didn't give me the diploma until I finished the Speech class.

Graduating from a school I'd only attended for a little more than two months wasn't something I'll call a highlight of my life. Not that I wanted to attend another year of high school just so I could feel some investment in my alma mater. Besides, the other things going on compensated for that. Our parents did come up for graduation. Of course they couldn't tell anybody who they were, because they were supposed to be in rehab. That's another one of those things you put in the box that holds "things we laugh about now, but didn't when it happened." We had a little party at the ranch, but then they had to get back home for work.

Looking back on that, it is only now that we can realize how hard this must have been on Mom and Dad. They never showed it. They always smiled and hugged us and supported us with nothing but love. But it had to have been a very dark time in their lives. Later that would change, thank goodness. But let's not get out of order.

That summer we worked hard. Because we worked hard we got along well with all the hands. They knew we lived in "the big house" but as family members they didn't find that strange. Whether they knew we lived in the same room, I couldn't say. It's possible, because occasionally, a hand would show up "to talk to the boss" and then end up staying the night in her room. We thought that was funny, because Aunt Maureen was in her fifties, and the hands were in their twenties. Apparently she was a tiger in bed. The fact is that with that going on too, we didn't feel all that unconventional at all.

While we worked hard, we loved hard too, most nights in that feather bed. If you've never been in an old fashioned feather bed, the mattress, which is a foot thick, is supported by canvas webbing that is stretched across the frame. That webbing sags over time, and when you compress twelve inches of goose down in the middle, the sides kind of curl up to enfold you. If you have someone with you, the two of you are literally thrown together. You can't roll apart, even if you want to. Well, you can, I suppose, but as soon as you relax, the bed will roll you back to the center.

Of course, we didn't want to roll apart. Sleeping together again was such a treat, we loved it, even when we got sweaty in that bed. The only down side was that getting out of it took some effort. You had to get on all fours and crawl to the edge. But you get used to that, just like you get used to getting up when it's still dark and moving around right away. No lazing around in bed on a working ranch. Trust me on that.

I don't know whether it was all the work we did or not, but as Addie's pregnancy progressed, the changes in her body weren't quite what I'd expected. I'd seen pregnant women before, of course, but most of them looked like it was a lot of work to carry their baby. They looked heavy all over, sort of. I'm not saying they weren't attractive. Some were and some weren't. But their original looks didn't have anything to do with it. The ones I'd seen in the past just had that beached whale kind of appearance that women complain about when they're pregnant.

Not Addison. She was slim and trim everywhere except her baby bump, and as that grew to maturity, it simply looked like she'd swallowed a soccer ball. Oh, her belly was stretched. No doubt about that. But it didn't blow her up like some odd balloon, and she didn't have back aches and waddle and all that.

There was one accommodation we had to make. Vlad had taught us the doggy style position. She hadn't liked that much, because she had to do some of the work, paying attention to her clit while I paid attention to my cock. Doggy style was good for me, but not so much for her. At least not if she wanted to just lie there and soak it all in. But with her belly sticking out, doggy style was the best way for me to get off and squirt. Of course she still loved sitting on top of me impaled, and belly dancing, jerking her hips forward and back. And that worked well in the feather bed. But it wasn't as good for getting me to spurt. So we kind of got in the habit of letting me go first, sometime in the evening, or even during the day, depending on what was going on. Then, at night, in the bed, it was all about her.

They say time flies when you're having fun. The summer seemed to fly by. It got to be the middle of August, and school was about to start, both in Montana and back home. Obviously Addison couldn't go back home yet. But there had been some discussion about me going back. Our situation had messed up college for me, because there was no guarantee that I'd be able to graduate from high school on time, and that meant I couldn't really apply to any colleges. So Mom and Dad had been suggesting that at least I could enroll in the Tech college, and take some of the classes that would transfer credit to a university once I applied and was accepted. There had never been any talk about doing anything other than going to college, and that hadn't changed.

So I was trying to figure out what to do while I rode standing on the three point hitch of the tractor behind Addie, who was driving. We had gone out to take down a diseased tree, and rather than cutting it up there and hauling all the pieces, I just wrapped the end of a log chain around the trunk, and hooked the other end to the ball on the back of the tractor. Then Addie started dragging the whole thing back to the burn pile out beyond the barn. I had been watching the tree, but it was pulling fine. I admit I was unhappy about the thought of leaving Addison there to have the baby and finish high school without me.

When we got to the burn pile she stood up, kind of spraddle legged, and looked down at jeans that looked like she'd peed herself half a dozen times in a row.

"Unhook that fucking tree, Bobby," she said, calmly. "My water broke and I'm having contractions. I think it's time to go."

Aunt Maureen was the one who flipped out. Addison and I had studied up on all this, including the concepts of Lamaze breathing, so that's what she did on the way to the hospital. Dr. Hobbs, her obstetrician, had been told Addie got drunk at a party and didn't know who the father was. Her previous doctor's records were obtained. While Dr. Anderson had known it was an incest baby, he hadn't put that into the file. His notes just stated that he was concerned about the development of the fetus, and had recommended frequent sonograms to keep an eye on things. Dr. Hobbs had done that, and had more than once asked her why Dr. Anderson had been so concerned. She said she didn't know, unless it was because she'd been so drunk at the point of conception. He said, "Well, the baby is fine, so I guess we won't worry about it." They were both happy.

So Addison went into labor not worried that there might be something wrong with the baby she already loved so much, and which both of us had stroked and talked to inside her belly for literally hours and hours. That I got to be there too, was the result of our cover story about Addison and me. People knew the sad tale of how we came to be at the ranch. And it was also assumed that it must be too soon since the accident for either parent to show up for the birth.

So nobody thought it was odd that a girl might want her step-brother, the only member of her family capable of being there to support her, in with her during labor. Especially since he had helped her train to do the breathing. Aunt Maureen was there, of course, but she left often, usually after a particularly strong contraction. She might have had a whole string of lovers, but she'd never had children. It became obvious that one reason she'd paid such careful attention to birth control was that the idea of going through what Addie was going through terrified her. She could face down a rampaging stallion with no problem, but have her watch Addison work through a strong contraction ... and she was reduced to a wreck.

It was different for me, for some reason. Maybe it's because I was the reason she was there, and having to go through all that. I wanted to be there, to help her if I could, and support her while she delivered our baby.

I'll tell you this. Watching a woman force a baby out of her body is a fascinating thing. She goes through all this pain that is obvious, and cannot be avoided, and comes without warning, whenever it's ready to come. And it happens hundreds of times over hours and hours. She gets worn out, and can't get comfortable, no matter what position she gets in. And if she somehow does find a comfortable position, a nurse tells her she has to move because the baby is being stressed by her being in that position. But through all of that, Addison didn't whine and moan and complain about it. She cried out in pain, but it was just that, an honest response to pain. She didn't tell me she hated me for doing this to her. In fact, more than once she pulled my ear next to her lips and whispered that she loved me!

And then, after all that, when she's wet with sweat, and the cords in her neck are standing out so starkly you could clip a clothes pin to them, and the doctor says, "Come on, Addie, one more push," and she finally flops back and says, " I can't!" In this tortured voice, you feel so helpless. You can't do anything for her except hold her hand, and tell her you love her, and none of that helps, because there's this huge thing stuck in her vagina, and everything hurts.

But the doctor has seen this a hundred times, and he sits patiently between her spread thighs, the only other man in the world who has seen her there, and he wheedles her into giving it one more try, and she grabs the steel railing that keeps her from falling off the table and strains and grunts for a push that seems like it lasts five minutes, not breathing at all while she does it. And the doctor praises her and asks for one more, and she's crying with the frustration of wanting to do what he's asking, but being too tired, and too out of breath.

And then, so suddenly it takes your breath away, the head pops out, and the nurses all make this unique kind of sound of approval as the mother's breath rushes out at the incredible, sudden loss of pressure in her groin. And this time she pushes instinctively, rather than because her uterine muscles demand it, and the doctor's hands do this funny little twisting thing while supporting the baby's head and the little body fairly squirts out into his hands. As this happens, you see the baby's shoulders hunched together, at first, and that baby looks slimy and blue and not quite human, somehow, until suddenly its arms wave and it cries and announces to the world that it liked being in the warm, safe cocoon of its mother's womb, and is not happy about losing that security. It flowers, there in the first blanket to touch its skin. It becomes a real, live, human baby.

Your baby!

And then you watch as it takes too long for the nurses to do whatever it is they're doing to the newborn, and the doctor says, " It's a boy!" which is unnecessary, because you've known that from the ultrasounds for months, but it shocks you into a big, goofy grin anyway.

Okay, I'm back. Whenever I remember those sixty seconds in time, when my son came into the world, it just takes me back.

Anyway, the reason I said the nurses were taking too long was because Addison, who had been braver and stronger than I could ever be for the last sixteen hours, was so tired that the only strength she had was to try, feebly, to sit up while she turns into a whining girl again and uses her pouting voice to ask, "Where's my baby?!"

There is nothing like watching a woman being handed her baby for the first time. He was still crying, but as soon as his naked skin touched hers, he quieted. Maybe it's smell. That's the only thing I can think of. A baby knows its mothers scent, and that calms him.

"You can try to nurse him," said a nurse, standing beside Addison's head, "but he probably won't take the nipple for several hours. He isn't really hungry right now. It's all too strange for him."

And then they had other things to do with Addison. She had to keep pushing to get the placenta out, and they took the baby off to clean him up, and ink the bottom of a foot and put that on paper and whatever else they do to babies. And suddenly Aunt Maureen and I weren't needed any longer, so with a hurried grab at her hand I told Addie we'd see her later. She smiled tiredly and we left.

Aunt Maureen and I left the hospital and went to a diner, where we had our first good meal in what seemed like days. After we ate, we went back to the car, an old Lincoln Continental that Aunt Maureen's father had purchased new. She'd taken good care of it and it was still in mint condition. She hadn't batted an eye at putting her niece into the back seat while she was in the process of having a baby, to take her to the hospital. When we got in, she didn't start it. Instead, she turned sideways in the seat and looked at me.

"So what are you kids going to do now?"

"Go back home, I guess," I said. "I mean, that's the plan, as far as I know it."

"Aren't you going to college?"

"I sent in some applications, but all this ... other ... happened and we ended up here, and all our plans got kind of shelved."

"So you're going to go back to Hastings and work at McDonald's or something?"

"That doesn't sound so attractive," I sighed. "Mom and Dad say I should go to the Tech when I get back, and start college that way."

"You do good work, Bobby. You're a natural with horses. Why don't you stay here?"

"Mom's going to help Addie with the baby," I said. "Addie has to finish school."

"That doesn't mean you have to be there too," said Aunt Maureen.

I think I looked shocked or something. She laughed.

"Can't stand the thought of being separated? You know that's what got you into this mess in the first place."

"I know," I said. " I don't know what to do."

"Want to know what I think?" she asked.

"Sure."

"I think you should go to college. Get yourself an Ag degree. And then come back here and help me run the ranch. One of these days I'm going to get tired of all the work, and want to relax a mite. And I'm not going to live forever. I ain't got no kids to leave the place to. I'd hate for some shark assed big corporation to buy it at auction and then sell it all off in pieces."

She frowned at the thought, but then her face relaxed.

"Then, after your sister finishes school, she can either join you at college, or come back here and work. Martha's in the same fix I am. She's gonna quit workin' one of these years and then I'm gonna need a new cook. Addie's good in the kitchen. The two of you could end up owning this ranch."

"You'd give us the ranch?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"I'd sell you the ranch," she corrected. "Part of the deal is I get to stay here until I croak. I'm gonna need somebody to take care of me in my dotage."

I opened the door. "I need to go talk to Addie."

She laughed. "Give the girl time to catch her breath. If I'd gone through what she just did, I doubt I'd want to see your ugly mug right away."

"She loves me," I objected. "She told me so a bunch of times in there."

"Be that as it may," said my aunt. "Now's not the time to hit her with something like that. Let's let her get her feet on the ground. And you're right. She does need to go back home for some help with that baby. I know nothing about the little rug rats, and don't want to learn. At the same time, you need to make plans. You're a man now, Bobby. You're gonna have to make your way in the world, one way or another. I know the popular thing these days is for kids to hang around the home place when they should be out doing something useful, but that don't mean you have to sign on to that plan. I've got friends at the University of Minnesota. I s'pect I can get you a seat there, and quite likely a scholarship too. It all depends on whether you're willin' to do the work to earn a shot at ownin' this ranch."

I closed the door again. My mind was whirling.

She let me think about it for two more hours and then said it was time to go back to the hospital and see Addison.

I knew I would have to have made some decisions by the time I saw my sister again.

And then it would be her turn.

<< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >>