Gen 1.9 More Letters and Two Scenes

TRIGGER WARNING: A racial slur and multiple slurs against women are used in this chapter also some mild cursing.

“Dear Shane,

We've fallen into a bit of a routine, the girls and I. We wake up at about 6:30 and I change Hazel and talk to her about body parts. Then I make breakfast for Juniper and I and give Hazel some toast sticks. Junie and I get her stuff together and get her off to the bus stop. After that, I play with Hazel for a couple hours and read her stories. Then I go off and sing a few sing-a-grams.

I don't like or trust that babysitter. Every time I come home, Hazel needs a change and hasn't been fed. I don't know what to do! I need the money! It's not like you're contributing anything while you're inside and Junie is still too young to be left in charge of anyone else. I have to be a model mother if I'm to adopt her.

It's usually the same 3-5 people wanting sing-a-grams every day. Griselda Zauber has me come to the real estate office a couple times a week and sing her a secret admirer gram and hand her a dozen red roses. I don't know who she's trying to convince she's desired: herself or her coworkers. Then Amani needs to be congratulated for working out. I guess it's motivating? Then it's a toss-up as to whether I have to tell Kent Lane he's special or congratulate Sam on working out. I'm beginning to think Sam is a sadist. Seriously? Who calls and requests their ex to come and dance around like an organ grinder's monkey?! He rebounded with Pam, that drunk from Gus's, and they had an oops baby. He really shouldn't be using his extra cash to have me come out and congratulate him on working out. He should be sending that to Pam for taking care of their baby.

When I get home I work on homework with Junie and cook dinner and then read both girls a bedtime story. I barely have time for my own research before it's my own bedtime.

You asked me in your last letter what I'm researching... Well, I've been given some equations to work on that should help figure out what quadrant the travellers are coming from. I have to spend a couple of hours each night observing the delta quadrant with my telescope and then in the morning I take my notes and work at it on the computer. It's slow-going. Sometimes I find a planet or a star that's been overlooked and can add it to the chart and sometimes I don't. It's a citizen science project at its finest.

I've also been working on radiation experiments on insects. I take samples of common insects, clone them and then subject them to radiation. Thus far, they are proving quite resilient. I've also been experimenting with sampling and cloning plant life. I'm trying to map the plant genome. Think of the possibilities! 

It's getting late. So I'm going to end this here.

Sleep well,

Lupe”

***

It was autumn again which meant parent/teacher conferences. Lupe had brought the girls up to the school to learn about Juniper's progress in school. Mrs. Kearney leaned forward earnestly to look Lupe in the eyes while she delivered her estimation of Juniper's scholastic abilities, “Juniper is a lovely kid, she is very diligent and always hands in her work. She's still struggling a bit in reading, but the tricks that she learned last year have definitely been helping her. She is a brilliant artist and I just love her answers to reading comprehension questions, but she struggles when writing them down. Juniper isn't much of a joiner, I've noticed, and she tends to stay close to the building waiting to get back inside. Could you talk to her about reaching out to her classmates? I know of several kids that would like to be friends with her, but whenever they reach out to her they're met with silence.”

Lupe knew that Juniper kept to herself, but didn't really see a problem with it. She would make friends when she wanted to. She had a decent group of friends, but now that Lupe thought about it, they were mostly her friend's kids, with the exception of Jude Lane. None of them were in her class. She nodded to Mrs Kearney, “I'll try, but why is it a problem if she isn't a joiner?”

Mrs. Kearney sighed, over her years of teaching she'd heard this question a lot, “Children need a community, Ms Estes, and their parents and family won't always be able to make that for them. You wouldn't want her to be alone in life.”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Kearney, she has friends, they just aren't in this class. I'll talk to her about which kids she thinks she could be friendly with and get her to reach out, but that's it.”

Lupe exited the classroom and nodded to the families waiting there. Juniper was sitting on the hallway floor playing peekaboo with Hazel who was laughing uproariously. Lupe smiled down at them, “C'mon, girls, let's get this wagon train a movin'!” Juniper had been on a kick of watching old cowboy movies and giggled, “So what did Mrs Kearney say Mom?”

Lupe looked around noting the other people in the hallways and waving when she recognized someone said, “We'll talk about it once we get home.”

Juniper accepted this and then saw Kathryn White-Fischer and her family up ahead, “Look, Mom, there's Kathryn and Lorraine!” She went running up to them excitedly to say hi and tell them about her pretty new teacher. Lupe exchanged greetings with Emily and Willy who always seemed like an odd couple to her but were obviously well matched. Emily was a tall thin woman with cobalt blue hair and a penchant for candy red lipstick. Her husband was a short, portly fisherman with a big, bushy, beard. They'd met at the bar near the docks where Emily was a bartender. He was a regular, but one of the few who didn't get into any trouble or try to pinch her bottom when her back was turned. During quiet winter nights he holed up in his corner table writing in a little journal, during lulls Emily would sit with him and he would read her his poetry. His words brought her to a rugged and beautiful life she knew nothing about. She was beautiful and much pursued, Willy was just kind and treated her like a person. He listened when she spoke and asked her opinions about things. Theirs was the kind of slow-burn romance that creeps up like mold. Unlike in the movies, there wasn't some grand realization brought on by an eleventh hour broken engagement to others. One day he was telling her about the mackerel that were schooling off the coast and the way the sun glints off their backs as they form a bait ball and she realized that she never wanted to have to stop talking to this man. He looked up while she was having this thought and felt like he was going to fall into her large brown eyes and reached up to touch her cheek with his calloused hand and she leaned into him. Six months later there were wedding bells and three months after that came Kathryn.

Emily was talking about the issues they were having with Lorraine in third grade, “There's just no halfway with her! If she's going to be friends with someone, it's gotta be besties or nothing! If she's going to learn anything she has to learn everything from every angle and it's driving everyone crazy. She has a lot of trouble transitioning from one activity to the next. The teacher was asking us for tips!”

“That does sound frustrating” said Lupe, scrounging for the right thing to say. She had no idea on how to help Emily and Lorraine's problems seemed quite out of the ordinary. “Have you spoken to the resource office? What does her doctor say?”

“The resource office thinks that alternative schooling might be better for her and allow her to take the deep dives into different subjects that she enjoys. The doctor says she is just more intense than other kids. How does Juniper like Mrs Kearney? I've heard nothing but lovely things!”

“Junie loves Mrs Kearney, but I'm not sure it's returned. Now that Jude and Kathryn are in different classes than her, I'm hearing about how my kid isn't a 'joiner'” Lupe rolled her eyes dramatically and Emily shook her head. Willy was deeply involved with his phone. The girls were exclaiming loudly about some TV show the kids were all into about capturing small animals. Juniper had been using the trading cards like flashcards with Hazel lately, informing her, “This is ratchan. He has electric powers. He's the cutest!!!!” Lorraine apparently favored a butterfly kind and Kathryn liked all the starfish.

***

“Dear Shane,

It's Thanksgiving today. I spent the last couple of days cooking tamales to bring over to Leah's. After washing Hazel's hands very well, she got the job of making sure the corn husks stayed in the bowl of water while Junie and I made the dough. We'd spent the past few days making different fillings- refried beans for the vegetarians, barbacoa and carnitas for the meat-eaters. Hazel took her job very seriously and didn't splash at all! Every time a corn husk floated up, she gently pushed it down again with a concerned look on her little face. I taught Juniper how to wrap them up in the corn husks and how to tie a surgeons knot on the carnitas and a bow on the barbacoa tamales in kitchen twine. Then Junie took it from there and I was able to make the salsas.

Somehow it's only at these holidays that I really notice children's growth. Junie is going into junior high next year and Hazel is going to be two soon. Leah and Elliot's boys are also growing like weeds. Elijah's just began high school and his voice is changing, but Guy was still happy to play with Junie. Joe is a sturdy little guy who'll be going into school next year.

You asked about turning Junie into a 'joiner...' It's not going very well. The other kids aren't as nice as last year's class. Apparently Abigail has been telling tails to Levar about me and Nina that aren't complementary. I had to explain to her what 'loose' meant when applied to women and girls! I'd scarcely call myself loose! I told her that when Levar tells her that his mom said her mom's a slut to say, 'Well, it takes one to know one.' That afternoon, I was called in because she'd been fighting. Now they seem to have reached an impasse. The kids all leave her alone because they can't take what they dish out.

The guardian ad litem says that next year, Juniper will be able to choose whether or not she will have visitation. Then we can talk about legal adoption. The social worker says that we're a long-term placement and that as long as we're both happy they won't move her! This year, I'm thankful for my girls and for the social welfare system.

Thinking of you,

Lupe”

“Dear Shane,

Why did you talk to me the day we met at the coffee shop? Marnie says you weren't much of a ladies' man and kept to yourself after Melissa died. What made me different than every other pretty face? You don't have to answer that.

I burried the lede, Hazel is finally talking! I was beginning to worry about her and talked to the doctor about getting her hearing assessed again, when she solemnly lifted her hand and pointed to the door and said “Out!” clear as day. I feel like she's been adding a word a day since then.

Junie wants to set up a lemonade stand at the spring festival for her scouting troupe. When I reminded her that she'd have to be outside and talk to people for hours, she was undetered. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but that's what we'll be doing this weekend. This time there won't be an exciting man to help me learn to skate or to bring me cotton candy. Just a lot of lemons to make lemonade out of.

Regards,

Lupe”

“Dear Shane,

They may have moved to a full year calendar, but the new year still starts in the fall. Junie has moved into junior high this year and is hitting puberty with a vengeance. The less said on that, the better.

I finally got Hazel potty trained! Now she's a real kid! Just in time for me to quit sing-a-grams. I was going to go do a sympathy sing-a-gram and for some reason it requires sparks. I tripped on a loose carpet while I was doing a shuffle step, kicked the box and caught fire. Luckily, I was able to stop, drop, and roll, but I'm done. I called Mr. Johnson right then and there and told him that I quit! I told him to lose my number and that if he didn't he would be hearing from my lawyer!

I guess I'll be researching full time now. I did discover something very odd yesterday. If I take a cockroach and bombard it with enough radiation it can transform into a plasma bug. I've taken some DNA samples and cloned the bug and now I have about five of them. I've spoken to some people in town and apparently they fetch a pretty penny on Ebay! It certainly beats selling scientific samples to the science center or correlating data for them piecemeal.

Cheers,

Lupe”

“Dear Shane,

Junie is such a good big sister! I was very involved in my work this afternoon and didn't hear Hazel begin to fuss. When I came downstairs, Junie had picked her up and carried her into the kitchen and was trying to put her in the highchair! I helped her get Hazel settled and then we decided what to give her for dinner together. I can't believe she's going to be a teen tomorrow!...”

***

Lupe and Juniper had been working on her party for weeks! They'd carefully hammered out the guest list and the menu the one thing they hadn't counted on was crashers. Who thinks of party crashers when they're planning their little girl's birthday?

The party had been going swimmingly. Juniper seemed to transition to a young woman before Lupe's eyes as she blew out the candles and Lupe decided to mingle with her friends reminiscing about when their babies were still little. She didn't know when Nina showed up, but she'd beelined over to Juniper and was screaming a blue-streak. Nina hadn't attended visitation in months and yet here she was, just to prove they wouldn't be rid of her, it seemed.

“You couldn't even invite your mother to your birthday! This is all that wetback bitch's doing

isn't it? She took you away from me and now she's turned you against me!”

“You turned me against you, Nina. You were supposed to love me and protect me and instead you left me outside in the cold. No! Let me finish! It's my turn to talk, for once. I have listened to you bitch and moan since I can remember about how the world owed you something and---”

“You were supposed to love me! Your father was supposed to love me! But that bitch needed him more and you look like that good-for-nothing son-of-a---”

“No, Nina, you were supposed to love me and take care of me! I was a kid and pulling blankets up over your body wondering if you were dead! All Lupe ever did was take care of me. She helped me with my homework. She took me to club meetings and playdates and came to all of my school things. All the things you were too busy to do. She pays for school trips, she cooks dinner. She taught me to cook! All you ever did was watch soaps and fall asleep on the couch when you weren't doing who knows what!”

“I gave you life! I sacrificed my best years for you! You ungrateful little bitch! I disown you!”

Lupe stepped in at this point, phone in hand, “Gracias por viene a la quincenera de mi hija, pero es necessita that you go now. I believe we've gotten all the footage that we need, isn't that right, Maru?” Maru inclined her head slightly while glaring at Nina. As Nina turned around to start protesting her treatment, she was met by stony faces and found Eliot at her shoulder. The normally affable, vain man was solemn and touched her on the elbow guiding her toward a waiting taxi, “Thank you for coming, please make it home safely. We've already paid your fare.”

Author's note: I'm sorry for using this language, but I wanted to show how language can be used as a weapon and how it feels to have it turned against you. I'm not Mexican, but I can't ignore how my neighbors are being treated by a large part of my country and as another minority, I wanted to create something which would make people empathize with them. In my experience, the way bigots level slurs against us is casual and what feels like a bomb going off to us is a statement of fact to them. "The sky is blue; Lupe Estes is a spic and a wetback." Is your heart beating faster after reading that? Mine is. This is the constant reality for minorities in this political climate. I am constantly on edge waiting for the next thing to happen and wondering when will be the time that we need to pack our clothes and run for Canada. No one in my family has had to contemplate leaving everything and running for their lives in over a hundred years. Here I am wondering when you know to run. I'll ask my Syrian neighbors. I am blessed to live in a diverse neighborhood.

Gen 1.8 Time Keeps on Slippin'

Lupe stared at the detectives on her doorstep. “Give me a moment to get dressed. You may have a seat over there.” she said gesturing to the outdoor furniture. Once she was ready to face them, she stepped out to speak with them again. “What can I do to help you gentlemen?”

“Are you aquainted with a man by the name of Shane Granger?” asked Detective Schicchi

“Yes.” The men started scribbling in their notepads.

“What is your relationship with the man in question?” asked the one on the left.

“He's my boyfriend.” more scribbling.

“Do you know of his whereabouts on the night of March twenty-forth?” asked Detective Polaski

“I'm sorry, we didn't have our first date until April third.”

“What about the night of April twenty-second?” asked Detective Schicchi

“He was with me.”

“The whole night?”

“He usually gets here about ten, ten thirty, I think? And leaves around four?”

“In the morning.”

“Yes”

“Where did he go?”

“He says he wants to be home in time to have breakfast with his daughter before she has to leave for school in the morning.”

“Where did he come from?”

“I don't know. I assume he comes from having dinner and doing homework with his daughter like I do with mine.”

“Where is Shane's place of employment?”

“He works at the factory downtown as a line supervisor. They make car parts. He generally works the day shift from eight to four.”

“And he leaves your company at four in the morning. What is he doing here?”

“How is that germane to this line of questioning? He's my boyfriend! What do you think he's doing here from ten at night until four in the morning every night for the past six months? Now if you'll excuse me gentleman, I believe I have answered enough questions for today.” Lupe got up from the couch and turned to go, “Am I free to go?”

The two detectives exchanged a few words before responding, “Yes, we'll be in touch.”

Lupe got into the house and managed to keep herself together until she heard them drive away. Then her thoughts started to race. She started to remember little things like how when they went to Gus's there would always be coworkers he'd talk to briefly and wouldn't introduce her to. Or how when they went to the movies he came from around the corner and then three other men came out and they exchanged nods. He always had a satchel and there always seemed to be stuff in it and he never seemed to be hurting for money. What had Shane gotten himself into!

Lupe started to breathe faster and faster. She needed to calm down, but she couldn't. Was she in trouble too? Was Shane anything that she believed him to be? Just then she felt a cold wet nose bump into her knee and Floyd rested his head in her lap. He looked up at her adoringly and wagged his tail anxiously. Lupe petted him, running her hands from stem to stern, the feeling of his wiry fur centering her. When she felt calm again, she thanked him.

Lupe got herself some breakfast and then called Shane. It went straight to voicemail. She tried not to start panicking again. She decided to distract herself with chores and reading. At 4:10, he called back.

“Lupe, what's wrong? Is it the baby? You don't usually call me in the middle of the day.”

“Shane, I'm fine. The baby is fine. Some men stopped by the house today looking for you. What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Men? What kind of men?”

“They said they were Detectives Polaski and Schicchi from the Meadow Glen Police Department.”

“Did they show you their badges?”

Lupe struggled to remember, “I don't remember. I'd just woken up and I thought the doorbell was broken because it wouldn't stop ringing.”

“What did they look like?”

“Polaski has light hair and blue eyes and is kinda skinny. Schicchi is a big Italian guy.” In her head Lupe hoped that they weren't the mob. She repeated, “Please be police officers” over and over again in her head practically praying and almost missed Shane's response.

“Fuck. I'm coming over.”

He was there just after Juniper got home. She eyed him with distrust as he came rushing up the driveway. Even thought he'd been seeing Lupe for six months now, this was their first encounter. Juniper wondered if this was why Lupe had been acting so different lately. Her mother would get all spacey because of men and she'd thought Lupe was different. She didn't want to be around whatever was going to happen, “Come on Floyd, let's go play! Where's your ball?” Floyd had been sleeping, but his ears had perked up at the sound of “Floyd” and “ball” and he went trotting off after the girl.

Shane seated himself on one of the living room chairs catty-corner to Lupe on the couch. When Juniper had left the room and he thought she'd be out of earshot, he said, “Polaski and Schicchi are cops. I went to school with them.”

With a sinking feeling, Lupe asked, “Shane, what have you done?”

“I can't tell you that. We're not married so anything I tell you wouldn't be protected. I didn't hurt anyone and I'm still the guy you thought I was. Just remember that, ok?” Shane got up to go. Lupe launched herself at him and they clung to each other like the world was ending. In a way, it was. “Promise me, you won't keep me from the baby? And you'll let me know what happens?”

“Of course I will, I would never keep you from your child.” Lupe said stepping back.

Shane left to go home and do some damage control with Jas, but the police picked him up before he even made it through the door.

The lead up to the trial was slow and painful. Lupe and Juniper were interviewed again and again by both sides before they could agree to a plea deal. Shane had stolen over $20,000 worth of goods from around the county over the past nine months. They were originally going for 5-7 years with no parole because he was clearly a career criminal, but Shane's lawyer managed to get the state to agree to 3-5 with parole in exchange for pleading guilty. The thought of missing the all of his kid's baby and toddler years was enough to get him to agree.

As much as Lupe had fretted about telling Shane about the baby, she had not been concerned about telling Juniper. Once Lupe was sure that the pregnancy would stick, she said to Juniper while they were playing video games, “What do you think of becoming a big sister?”

Juniper made a face, “Nina's pregnant?”

“No, I am.” said Lupe gesturing to her expanding middle. Juniper regarded her belly silently for a moment and said, “Augustin has a baby sister and Elijah and Guy have a baby brother and Jude has a baby brother too. You better have a girl, then I can put her in dresses!” Then Juniper went back to her video game.

Things went pretty smoothly and predictably after that, until one day at the end of her pregnancy, she got out of bed to use the bathroom and went into labor instead. The birth went very smoothly and quickly and she was home in next to no time with a baby girl named Hazel. She wrote to Shane,

“Dear Shane,

You are now the father of a brand new baby girl! I decided to call her Hazel after your grandmother. She's beautiful! She is so tiny, only 6 lbs, 4 oz and 18 ½ inches long. The doctors say that she is very strong and perfectly healthy. She has your eyes, I guess we'll see about the athletic prowess, ha ha. The first night after she was born, her eyes were blue-gray and I watched as they filled up like a cup with brown. She's got a strong grip! She grabs onto my fingertip and holds it so tightly I'm afraid she's going to rip it off!”

Letters to an absent father turned out to be a better baby book then the one she was given at her baby shower. She wrote to him anytime Hazel did anything interesting, and since she was a doting mama, that was almost every day. Shane was the envy of the block with his letters and the baby pictures that often came with them. Even the guards would stop by the proud papa's cell to ask what the latest news was. He wrote back faithfully telling Lupe how proud he was of Hazel and her and asking after Juniper and Floyd.

Eventually, their relationship changed and mellowed into a friendship. It had run its course and the distance helped them to find a good co-parenting relationship. Lupe wrote to him because she felt that he needed to know what was going on. Or, at least, that's what she'd tell people when they asked. She wrote to him because he was the one person in the world who was as interested in Hazel as she was. She could go on and on to him about how Hazel could almost roll over from both directions now and how she delivered baby lectures of coos and gurgles. She could write about the hard nights and the diaper blowouts and she couldn't see Shane's eyes glaze over. His letters were a very important outlet for Lupe in the absence of a caring mother and extended family. Her letters reminded him what he had to look forward to and why he needed to stay out of trouble. He had parole to look forward to and two daughters to get back to, assuming Jas would ever speak to him again.

On Hazel's six month birthday, Lupe wrote:

“Dear Shane,

Today, Hazel is six months old. She has one tooth and has been trying it out on everything! Poor Floyd is getting so old and lazy that she's gotten his tail a few times! Junie is deep into the obsession and importance of birthdays so she has been begging me to make an occasion of Hazel's half birthday. The best I could do was promise that today would be the day we'd introduce solids. Junie is upset that I won't be allowing Hazel any cake, but I managed to explain that cake would be a terrible first food. She's going to have a banana and some avocado.

The same evening, before bed.

Did you know our baby is an alien? That's exactly what she looked like smeared with the avocado and banana gook. I'm afraid I'll never get the stains out of the dress Junie insisted on putting her in! The book says that food before one is just for fun, so we definitely accomplished that. She's getting much better at sitting, too. I can put her into a sitting position and she'll sit and play for quite a while before she crashes. Don't worry I put a blanket in a semicircle surrounding her. She loves the baby gym that Marnie got her! She doesn't really want to lay there anymore, though. She rolls or skoots backwards to get what she wants! Did Marnie tell you about her baby? Jed just turned one and he looks just like Marnie now. I keep looking for signs of Marlon in him and he's all Granger! Maybe there's a bit of Marlon around the jaw? ...”

At nine months she wrote,

“Dear Shane,

Hazel is learning to stand and is beginning to cruise the furniture. When she wakes up at night, she stands up in the crib and walks around and around holding the rail. Unfortunately, she doesn't know how to sit yet, so she stands there getting tired and scared to fall and starts screaming so badly you're heart would just about break! Then, when I go to sit her down she pops right back up again like a jack-in-the-box. So I end up rocking her back to sleep. When she's inconsolable, all I need to do to calm her down is to take her outside and she stares up at the trees with a look of wonder in her eyes. I think she's getting a tooth or two in. We spend a lot of time outside with her in the baby carrier, but I can tend the garden with a baby on my back, just as well as without. ...”

On Hazel's first birthday, Lupe wrote to Shane,

“Dear Shane,

It's been such a beautiful transformative year watching our baby grow from a small defenseless potato to a big squirmy bug! I'm so angry you had to miss it. You missed feeling her kick inside me and you missed seeing her born. You missed the late nights and the early mornings. You missed her first smile and her first laugh. Why!? Because you couldn't keep your sticky fingers to yourself!? Because you wanted what you couldn't have? Why did you do it? You didn't just miss her first year of life, you also missed your first nephew's, and you missed Jas' first boyfriend and first breakup. It was Vincent Lane, by the way. I know she hasn't written you lately. I'm so angry with you right now, I could shake you! Be happy you are in prison or I'd be going there myself for killing you.

Our daughter is beautiful with wispy black baby curls and large, solemn brown eyes. She's pale, like you, but she looks a lot like me too. She is so strong and enjoys racing across the downstairs crawling as fast as she can. She's gotten very good at cruising the furniture and takes one or two daring steps between them. She's going to start speaking soon, her babbling is starting to sound more and more like words. I try to take a few minutes out of every day to go through the vocabulary book pointing at pictures and telling her what they are. I think her first word is going to be 'ball' or 'tree!' I've enclosed a picture of Hazel last night when she fell asleep on the floor.

Respectfully,

Lupe”

Notes: I've always wanted to experiment with the epistolary style, but it doesn't work very well now that people don't really write letters. I'd like to thank Shane for his criminal enterprises allowing me such a great way to show the passage of time. I still suck at taking enough pics while playing and I end up writing and then inviting people over so I can get screenshots to support events. Shane will be out of prison once Hazel ages up to child and can invite him over. It's been a while since I've played a single mother, but I appreciate that Story Progression has them pay child support to the active household. It makes me feel much less angry with absentee non-custodial parents. 

Gen 1.7 Decisions

Lupe cooked apple pancakes on autopilot. Then chatted about nothing with Juniper as they ate. What was she going to do? After Juniper left for school, Lupe called in to work and told them she was sick. Since she was a contract/commission worker that just meant that her phone wouldn't be going off all day. Then she did all the chores she always did mulling it over. She could keep the baby. But what about Juniper? How would she feel? The baby would never replace her, but she needed stability. What about DCFS? Would they take Juniper away because Lupe was pregnant? What about Shane? How would he react? He already had one unplanned child, could he possibly deal with another?

What if she aborted? Lupe clutched at her middle, the voices of her antepasados echoing in her ears. Her abuela had said that her bisabuela had had an abortion when she got pregnant while her husband was away and had always mourned the child that never was. In her honor, abuela laid a single marigold on a flat stone under the bouganvillia on Dia de los Muertos. Bisabuela had said Hail Marys and Our Fathers for weeks to atone and believed herself damned. It was still better than what Bisabuelo would've done had he come home from a year away to find his wife heavy with child.

When Abuela's mind was going, she had grabbed Lupe's hand tightly calling her by her mother's name and pleaded with her to keep the baby. That she would raise it as her own. That no one had to know. “¡Mija, por favor!” Abuela wouldn't let go until Lupe had promised that she wouldn't abort her baby and would raise her as her own.

Lupe knew what the church would say and she didn't care. If she decided to keep this baby it was her decision alone, she wasn't even sure she had a soul. Could she get rid of a child she had conceived out of love? Could she raise a baby by herself? She texted her friends Leah and Maru. She needed some perspective.

Lupe and Maru had become fast friends while she was still seeing Sam. Maru was Sam's friend Sebastian's little sister. Neither of them had much time for Maru which made gatherings between their families awkward for her. Maru was smack dab in the middle between Sebastian and Sam's ages and their little siblings; too young and nerdy to hang out with her big brother and too mature to join in with Vincent and Delia. When Lupe had shown up at a barbecue, Maru had impressed her with her intellect and analytical nature. Maru was a registered nurse and had married a much older doctor who was able to look past the cool exterior and see the passionate woman underneath.

The text Lupe sent them was brief to the point of alarming them, “Could you come over? I need to talk to someone.” They came running over. Lupe had taken three more tests by this time and set them in a neat line across the coffee table. When her friends came over their concerned eyes took in the state of the house (clean, row of positive pregnancy tests on the table) and Lupe (distraught, wearing sweats) and sat down on either side of her. Maru began with, “So I think you've proven you're pregnant and can stop repeating the experiment, unless you'd like one of us to take a test as a control?”

Leah sallied forth with, “Have you told Shane yet?”

“No!” wailed Lupe beginning to cry. Leah rubbed her back and Maru just leaned forward and rested her hand on Lupe's knee. “Have you decided what you're going to do?” asked Maru. Lupe just shook her head. “Do you want me to talk you through what termination would be like? You don't have to have this baby. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.”

“I don't know if I could do it” said Lupe wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I mean, we're not in love and we're not even exclusive. I mean, I'm not seeing anyone else and neither is he, but we...” She faltered looking for the right words to describe the relationship she had with the man she spent every night with, who knew more about her than anyone else in Meadow Glen, who she knew so little of. Shane tended to ask Lupe about herself and get her chatting about whatever she was researching or had worked on and gave out snippets of information about himself. She knew about his childhood on the farm with Marnie, his opinions, his love of sports, the trials of raising a girl like Jas who was so different from anyone else he'd ever known and so different from her mom. Suddenly, Lupe realized she had no idea what he did every day or who his friends were. What had seemed charmed and special, suddenly seemed sordid. “Tell me about terminating.”

“First, we'd need to take a blood sample to work out the approximate dates and confirm pregnancy. Then, depending on where you are there's a couple of options. The surgical abortion is the same procedure as a D&C, the doctor will swab your cervix with a hormone that will cause you to dialate and then they will insert a curette inside your uterus to scrap out the uterine lining and the fetus. The patient is generally awake and you are generally in and out in about an hour. If it's still early enough for a medical abortion, then you'll be given a set of two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, to take. First, you'll take the mifepristone pill which will stop your body's production for progesterone and stops the pregnancy from continuing to grow. Then you take the misoprostol pill within the next forty-eight hours to induce bleeding and cramping to empty your uterus. They are both safe and effective ways to end a pregnancy. On a personal note, you don't have to tell him. I can work you into the schedule for tomorrow or the next day and no one will ever need to know.”

“What if I decide to keep it? What will people think? What will happen to Juniper?”

Leah answered, “Then you will have a baby to raise. People will think you've had a baby. Those that know you won't care that you aren't married and weren't serious with the father. What about Juniper? I thought you said the social worker sings your praises throughout the land; they're not exactly going to hand her back to that harpy.”

Maru interjected, “Are you worried about that the Department of Children and Family Services would remove her? Lupe, let's set your mind at ease right now and look that up. You can't be the first fostermom to get pregnant while fostering and they wouldn't remove her from your care when she's thriving. That would be majorly shooting themselves in the foot. Besides, by now she's your kid. Last time she and Augustin were playing house I heard her calling him 'querido' and asking him to pick up more maza at the store. For some ditchwater blonde girl, she's awfully Mexican.”

That successfully got a laugh out of Lupe as Maru intended. “I think I'm going to keep it. I did always want my own babies, but what should I tell Shane?”

“How about, 'Oh great and virile male, you have successfully impregnated me! All hail the phallus!'” suggested Leah.

Maru gave her a look, “How about, not that?”

“What? That's how I told Elliot about Joe!” Leah exclaimed.

“Seems a little, glib is all” said Maru

“You could take him out to karaoke and sing 'Papa Don't Preach' and dedicate it to him.” suggested Leah.

“Yeah, don't do that. Is he coming over tonight? Instead of taking him into the bedroom, sit him down here and tell him. Use your big girl words and say, 'Shane, I'm pregnant.'” suggested Maru.

“Softening it doesn't help” said Leah, “I've been where you are now and it sucks, just tell him as soon as you can.” she paused and took a breath, “Is there something you're not telling us Lupe? Are you scared to tell him for your safety? You don't ever need to tell him. This can just be our secret. If he ever finds out about the baby, you can just tell him that you don't know who the father is or that it's somebody else's.”

“Shane would never hurt me, but Jas was also unplanned. He'd have a teenager and a baby.”

“Honey, he knew there was a risk when he got into bed with you and you both agreed to coitus. Unless you were content to practice cunnilingus or fellatio from now to the end of time, pregnancy was always a risk. You were sensible and you used condoms during your most fertile zones, but the rhythm method is only about 80% effective. That also means 20% ineffective. He agreed to those risks when he agreed to those terms. He could've said that 20% wasn't a risk he was willing to live with and insisted on a condom which lowers the risk to only 2% This isn't all your fault, Lupe, it takes two to tango.” said Maru, practically.

After hashing it out some more, Leah and Maru took their leave after exchanging hugs with each other and Lupe. Lupe went about the afternoon and evening on autopilot and had a bubble bath after getting Juniper to sleep.

She had every intention of sitting Shane down in the living room and telling him that night, but she got swept up when he showed up. He came up the driveway at a trot, whistling and when she opened the door, to let him in he swept her up into his arms, kicked the door closed and carried her off to her room. In between kisses, Lupe managed to convey, “Mmm. Shane, I need to tell you something...” His hands were fiddling with the clasp of her bra. Lupe put her hands flat on his chest and pushed him back.

“Shane! I'm pregnant.” Shane took a step back, processing this.

“Are you sure? How far along?” He didn't sound angry, but Lupe still felt defiant.

“Yes, I took four tests today. They were all positive. I don't know, not more than eight weeks. Last month was really light, remember? I am going to keep it.” Lupe paused, gauging his reaction. She didn't love him, but she thought she might in time, “I know we're not serious, but I've thought long and hard about this and I couldn't bear to get rid of it. I know you don't love me...”

“Who says I don't love you?” Shane said, affronted.

“You never said you did! We never even talked about whether we were exclusive or not!” Lupe said, heatedly.

“Lupe, I love you and I can't wait to meet this baby! You know that there's no one else, right? There's just you and that's the way I like it. I hope the baby gets your eyes and my athletic prowess!” Shane said laughingly, with his hands on her shoulders.

That was all the talking that they did that night. Lupe didn't even stir when he let himself out at dawn or when Juniper left for school.

She really ought to fix the doorbell, was Lupe's first thought on waking that morning. She blearily headed to the front door to see two men in shabby suits waiting outside. “Guadalupe Estes?” Lupe nodded. “Detective Polaski and Detective Schicchi from Meadow Glen PD, we'd like to ask you a few questions.”