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.