The Age of the Child

by Kristen Tsetsi

  “I’d like to stay,” Millie said.

  She knew from reading the Fact and watching the local news that the names gathered from the Hack House hadn’t been released to the public. Assuming she exercised the appropriate caution, she could still have her moment.

  “Did you hear me?” Lenny said.

  “It would be three additional months, more or less.”

  “I said no, Millie.”

  Millie’s surprise was an innate emotional reflex. Before pushing it aside, in a split-second moment of agitation, she almost made a mechanical attempt to reconcile Lenny’s rejection with the keepsake article in her underwear drawer, but two decades of trying to figure out her parents hadn’t yielded a single rational explanation for their confounding treatment.

  “In exchange for safe lodging,” Millie said, “I pledge to take care of your cats and d—”

  “Ha!” Lenny added, “I mean, that’s not—It isn’t safe lodging, don’t you see? I don’t think those detectives believed a word I said.”

  She went on to explain what Millie already knew about the powers of a warrant. She then expressed concerns about the basement door accidentally being left open, unannounced visits, discoveries and Exile, etcetera.

  Millie pulled the cigarette from her mouth. The filter, which had adhered itself to the inside of her lip, ripped off a fine layer of skin. “You don’t have to worry,” she said, licking the sting. “I discovered that with some minor rearranging of my cigarettes and your abortion aids, I fit—granted, in a tight fetal position—in that small compartment under the bed. If even you didn’t think to look there when you and Gabriella were hunting for my cigarettes, it must be safe. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Millie couldn’t sleep that night, alone in the stale, silent, cavernous suite. She tried the couch and was hot under the blanket she’d pulled from the bed. She pushed the blanket to the floor and was cold. She rolled onto her side, and then onto her other side. When she heard a hint of a creak in the ceiling, she tiptoed up the stairs without turning on a light and sat with her ear pressed to the door, which wasn’t quite soundproof enough to entirely muffle Lenny’s voice.

  “…course you passed! I can’t imagine anyone finding something wrong with you. So, now it’s the dog tr—? … No dog trial, even a short one? … You must have really impressed them! …” (Laughter) “… Well, you’d have been great with one, anyway. … I’d love to. But I’m busy tomorrow, so, Friday?”

  Millie slinked back down the stairs, her face hot, and walked confidently in the dark through the layout she’d become familiar with. She remembered the blanket only when it tangled around one of her feet, pitching her forward into the table she remembered was there a fraction of a second before her cheek bone met one of its sharp edges. Her eye and forehead and nose surging with piercing cold pain, she yanked the blanket off her feet, inspected herself for blood (she felt none), and crawled until she found the telephone.

  Lenny was at the shelter—where Millie knew they allowed no television—when breaking news announced the next morning that Gabriella Dahl, wife of the late World Cannabis magnate Ezra Smythe, had been arrested outside of her home in an affluent Haverton subdivision following an anonymous telephone tip accusing her of “willful unsanction-ed pregnancy and intent to drop.” Millie watched and listened through the open living room window as police led Gabriella, her expensive white t-shirt stretched taut against her massive middle, from the patrol car to the county jailhouse.

  “It isn’t true!” Gabriella screamed at reporters gathered at the entrance. “I—I only learned very recently that I was—Please! I passed my evaluation! You must trust the bureau, if not me!” She waved a document in the face of a reporter holding a microphone.

  The reporter winced, wiped at his nose with a gloved finger, and tore the paper from Gabriella’s hand. “Exile!” he hissed before a hand extended from the camera to tap him on the shoulder. The reporter snapped his attention to the lens. His face flushed purple as he bared his teeth in a winning, objective smile.

  THIRTY SIX

  The CHESTER’S MOM doll was taking too long to burn. Lenny could smell that they’d added wood, probably to the torso where it would have been easy to hide in the stuffing. They weren’t supposed to use wood. They were supposed to use what the staff gave them—thrift store sheets and pillows and ten economy sized bags of cotton balls. The only approved deviation was that each resident could throw one personal item into the fire. The younger residents, before licensing reduced the numbers, used to sacrifice stuffed bears and bunnies and rubber chickens. Now that most of the residents were older, it was usually a pungent sock or a pair of underwear with fresh…soiling, but some didn’t want to part with personal items of any kind (“Why should I give that lady my stuff?” said one resident, once upon a time).

  Lenny and the other interims continued with their ceremonial clapping as a thirteen-year-old named Denise threw chunks of red velvet “Happy Birthday Chester Walton” cake at Chester Walton’s mom’s flaming chest.

  “She brought you into this world,” yelled a small gathering on one side of the shrinking body, “and she took you out,” finished the group on the other side.

  The staff stepped back for the closing portion of the ceremony, standing by for safety as the residents formed a circle around CHESTER’S MOM to watch her burn.

  Lenny looked at her watch. Ordinarily she’d have stayed to try to find out where they got the wood, but she needed to let the dogs out before lunch with Gabriella. This would be her first time skipping the annual post-burning “Compassion for the Abuser” presentation they made the children sit still for. (There’d been a meeting one year about holding the presentation before the fire, but someone had argued the residents would be even less likely to pay attention with all that sugar and CHESTER’S MOM burning to look forward to. No one could disagree.)

  She considered feeling guilty about leaving the responsibility to the others so she’d feel better about not being there, then decided there was nothing wrong with being excited to help Gabriella celebrate her passed evaluation. Except for Floyd, Lenny had never had a friend to celebrate with (and Floyd’s way of celebrating—getting sick on bags of candy, usually after finishing a challenge of a house—hadn’t been as much fun for her as it was for him).

  She sped home with barely-stops at stop signs, bent over on her way inside to pick up the Daily Fact that had recently started appearing, and rushed the dogs out for a quick walk. It wasn’t until she brought them in and set their bowls on the kitchen counter for filling that she saw Gabriella’s crying eyes peering over the top of the newspaper’s fold. She gave the dogs their food and flipped the pages flat.

  Suspected unsanctioned carrier to be freed, police say

  HAVERTON—Police say they will release incidental carrier and World Cannabis CEO Gabriella Dahl, 21, Saturday pending no new evidence of intent to impregnate and/or intent to abandon. Police arrested Dahl Thursday in response to an anonymous tip alleging that Dahl had intentionally impregnated without a license and had then made plans to abandon her offspring.

  Dahl, a former abandoned whose chip was removed in childhood, told police the removal process had so traumatized her that she was reluctant to replace it. Dahl also claimed she had always believed herself incapable of impregnating and had therefore assumed her abdominal growth was a consequence of “too much pasta and ice cream.” One of the arresting officers, Matthew Fence, expressed skepticism.

  “She was pretty nervous when we caught up with her,” Fence said. “If you ask me, it was damn obvious she was pregnant. She had the telltale weight. Right around here.”

  Fence went on to say that he would be suspicious of any person claiming to be ignorant of having impregnated, an oversight he called “downright laughable and, I’ll just say it, unbecoming of anyone with a uterus.” Fence tied his characterization of such a person to Dahl and what he suspected was the motivation behind her alleged plan to abandon.

  “Lo
ok, she runs the cannabis farm. What more do we need? Everyone knows that anyone with a particular sense of direction—and by that I mean doing anything but everything anyone could possibly do to be a licensed carrier, the only mark of a truly good uterus-bearer—is heinously misguided. Heinously misguided. What’s it tell you she never got a new chip? What’s it tell you she didn’t report herself months ago? I’ll tell you what. She’s all business. All business. Reprehensible.”

  Fence’s commanding officer, Lt. Penelope Bristol, said that because Fence had had no role in the interrogations he could not comment intelligently on Dahl’s circumstances, nor on her poten-tial release.

  “Officers with level heads said Dahl was friendly, cooperative, and convincing. She also gave us some very helpful information,” Bristol said. She added that Fence was recently relieved of his duties.

  Bristol declined to reveal the information Dahl provided, saying only that it was useful to the department’s broader search for consciously unsanctioned carriers.

  “Millie!”

  Dahl’s prospective release prompted protesters on both sides of the ongoing licensing debate to march in front of police headquarters as well as in Tinytown’s Main Street Park.

  “Unsanctioned carrying is child abuse!” one park protester argued. A group of three some feet away chanted, “Whether they love it, beat it, or set it wild, deny no hopeful parent a child!”

  Protesters opposing and supporting Dahl said they plan to gather at her residence upon her release.

  “Millie!”

  Lenny hadn’t checked the call log since Millie moved in—no one ever called, not even Floyd. She took it and the phone bud out of the drawer and scrolled through the numbers, but there was nothing from Gabriella’s phone and nothing from a police station. (There was, of course, no reason Gabriella should have called. With only one phone call to make, she’d have wanted to contact her lawyer. Lenny doubted she’d have been thinking at the time about how to cancel their lunch.)

  “MILLIE!”

  Millie had left the door to the basement open—she always left it open—so Lenny knew she could hear her. She spun on the stool to call out again and saw Millie standing in the kitchen doorway. Her hair was flat on one side, and her squinted eyes were swollen—as was her cheek under a colorful bruise. The blue nightgown she wore, which Lenny recognized as one of Gabriella’s, gathered on the floor around her feet. The midsection was so loose it was almost impossible to tell she was pregnant.

  “What?” Millie said.

  Lenny wanted to ask how Millie happened to have one of Gabriella’s nightgowns, but she already knew that no matter what the truth was, she would say Gabriella had forgotten it.

  “What happened to your face?” Lenny said.

  “I fell.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Lenny waved her over and slid the newspaper in front of her. Millie’s expression gave nothing away as she read it.

  “Well?” Lenny said.

  Millie sniffed and yawned. “‘Studies show child abuse continues its steep decline.’ Is that surpris—?”

  “Not that.”

  Millie rubbed her eye. “‘Wilma Mezrich, twenty-nine, died of a drug overdose…police found her body in the hallway of a Prospect apartment building’…?”

  Lenny hadn’t noticed that article. She remembered Wilma from school, her bright makeup and, by senior year, reputation for trading oral sex for THC. They said she spent every Wednesday assembly under the bleachers on her knees, so stoned she was almost asleep. Lenny felt happy for her, now that she was free.

  “Don’t you see her face in the middle of the page?” Lenny tapped Gabriella’s forehead. “Right here?”

  Millie folded the paper and placed it face-down. “She’s being released. How exciting for—” She winced. She looked down at her belly.

  “You don’t seem surprised that she was arrested.”

  Millie slapped at her stomach. “Television media covered it ad nauseam yesterday morning.”

  Lenny didn’t bother to ask whether Millie had been the one to call. “Why?” she said instead. “Do you know how much Gabriella has already been through? Did you think about anyone or anything but yourself before making that phone call?”

  Millie plopped a hand on top of her belly and sighed. “Don’t be absurd, Lenny. Of course I d—”

  “Is that my ring?”

  Millie dropped her arm. The sleeve fell over her hand.

  Before either of them could say anything else, the doorbell chimed. They looked into the foyer. The bell sounded again, the tune mangled by simultaneous knocking.

  Merriweather said through the door, “We need a minute, Ms. Mabary.”

  “If you have the key to the Oxford house,” Davis said, “you can save some time by bringing it to us now.”

  He, or Merriweather, slipped a folded piece of paper under the door.

  Lenny pulled Millie to the opening in the foyer wall and waved her down to the basement, then pressed the door closed behind her.

  Lenny put down the camera when she saw Davis and Merriweather leaving Millie’s house. She ran through all the rooms on the main level one more time to make sure nothing hinting at Millie’s presence had been left anywhere, and she was waiting for them in the foyer when she remembered the ring. Millie had also been to the second floor.

  Lenny took the stairs two at a time and sprinted from room to room, but there was nothing. She made it back downstairs just in time to open the door when they knocked.

  “Exercising?” Merriweather said.

  Lenny smiled and nodded and wiped her forehead.

  Merriweather made a point of noticing Lenny’s blouse and stiff slacks.

  “Gotta do it whenever you can find a lickety minute, these days,” Lenny said. “All this being busy nonsense like t’drive me crazy!”

  Davis scratched under his nose. “Well,” he said, handing Lenny the key, “she’s been there. Recently, I mean.”

  Lenny gasped. “She has?” What could she have so needed from the house that she’d risk being seen crossing that wide field? “I mean—I just mean it seems like I’d have seen her,” she said, indicating the living room window. She was embarrassed to notice she’d left the camera on the couch, the lens pointed out the window. Merriweather strolled into the living room, picked up the camera, and looked through the view finder.

  “There are some marks in the dust,” Davis said. “A fresh cigarette butt here and there.”

  “You take a lot of pictures of her house?” Merriweather said. She put down the camera and looked around the room.

  “I’ve never seen police investigate anything before,” Lenny said. “I watched you. I’m sorry.”

  Merriweather rejoined them in the foyer. “You haven’t heard from her or seen her since the last time we were here, I’m guessing. You’d have called us. Right?”

  Her hand pressed to her heart and with all the conviction of a woman telling the absolute truth, Lenny promised that she hadn’t seen Millie enter or leave the house in months. She couldn’t believe Millie’s recklessness. Had the detectives visited at just the right time, Millie would have been taken, her baby dumped in a state shelter like so many others when there were at least twelve perfectly good, privately funded shelters within a hundred m—

  “While you’re here,” Lenny said, “can you please tell me why the bureau won’t send collaterals to privately funded shelters? The state-run facilities are…you know. Don’t you?”

  “That why you’re helping her?” Davis said. “You could probably adopt it, if you’re worried about it.”

  “I’m not—This is about your procedures. If you did find Millie, whether here or in…in Texas, or wherever, couldn’t you keep her baby out of a state—”

  “She’s not in Texas,” Davis said. “Or Wisconsin. That’s where the boyfriend is. Wisconsin.”

  “Are you pullin’ my—Wisconsin?”

  Merriweather said ye
s, Wisconsin, and that she was sorry, but they had no influence on “procedure.” They investigated; the courts distributed.

  “Private shelters don’t have federal certification,” Davis said. “It takes time and work to make choices, and there are too many private shelters to choose from. Simple as that.”

  Davis said they were going to have to search Lenny’s house, now.

  Lenny waited in the foyer throughout their two-hour inspection so she’d be there if they found the door. They didn’t.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  Millie observed no police after two passes on Main Street. She instructed the driver stop in front of a taco restaurant, this time. (She selected a new start point each visit in order to complete the illusion of a woman running daily errands.) She climbed gingerly out of the ancient car, paid cash, and gripped the roof and door for (largely unneeded) support while smiling at passersby and greeting them with “Whew!” and a jolly rub of her pregnancy.

  Young people—teenagers and those her own age—sneaked envious or longing looks at her, imbuing her pride and exhilaration that inflated her lungs and warmed her face and chest. To attract the attention of a couple who seemed about to pass without noticing her, Millie looked up to read a restaurant awning and accidentally wandered into their path.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she giggled breathlessly at them with a hand cupping her abdomen. “I’m so clumsy, these days!”

  They smiled and congratulated her.

  The next person who attempted to ignore her was treated to her urgent request for physical support while she clumsily fished a fleck of something out of her shoe.

  When the clock in front of the jewelry store said an hour had passed, Millie stepped into a consignment store. Under the cold blast of air conditioning, she wiped away the sweat gathered under her large sunglasses and scratched her head at the wig’s finger clip, then used the telephone to call a driver. While she waited, she looked for a store she hadn’t yet visited. Next time, she would use the phone in the rug store across the street.