Julie looked at Rosie while she ate dinner, and her eyes never left her. Rosemarie finished her hot dogs and looked up at her mother with those gray, almost translucent, eyes.
Julie looked down, away from her daughter. Rosemarie pushed at the table. “Do you want to get down, honey?” asked Ray, her husband.
“Uh huh,” Rosemarie said. “Watch TV?”
“You’ve watched enough TV today,” Julie said. Ever since that man left, she’d let her watch PBS all the way until the news shows, when Ray finally came home. She hardly did that, spending usually at least some time with her daughter.
Ray looked over at Julie. “What’s wrong?”
“Later,” Julie said, picking up her uneaten dinner and throwing it in the trash. “C’mon Rosemarie. Mommy didn’t get to have tea with you today.”
“Hum, okay,” Rosemarie said, and got out the plastic Disney tea set.
As Julie sat with her daughter, pretending to drink tea and eat “scrumpets”, Ray went outside to putter in the garage, like he always did when he needed to kill time before his baseball games came on.
Rosemarie talked about her visit by “the white haired man”. “He asked about Blankie,” she said, waving her teacup in the air, splashing imaginary tea.
“A lot of people ask about Blankie,” Julie said.
“He felt my tummy. Is he a doctor?”
Julie bit her lip before answering, “I think so.”
Rosemarie frowned, “Does he give shots?”
“I don’t think so,” Julie said, and tears came unbidden to her eyes.
Rosemarie saw them, and put the teacup down. “Mommy?”
“I can’t right now, honey,” she said, and got up from the floor, almost running out of the living room into the kitchen.
She stood at the sink, sobbing, looking out the window at the pretty oak on her front lawn, across from which had been that damn Knight and his god damn bike, and his god damn partner who had to come here and sentence her daughter to – to…
She felt someone hug her knees, and bawled again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ray climbed into bed and sat up next to his wife. “Jules? Now what’s wrong?” he said, his hand absently caressing her stomach.
Julie shut the TV off and glared at Ray. He stopped and sat up. “This is serious?” he asked.
“Remember Rosemarie’s donor?”
“Yes,” Ray said, nearly hissing the word out.
“Well, his ‘life-partner’ – “ She used airquotes “showed up here today. With papers.”
“Papers? What kind of papers?”
“Papers for paternity. And child support. No custody. He wants a say in any adoption proceedings, and if I’m married and you adopt her, which he won’t contest.”
“He’d better not,” Ray snarled. They were already just over a full year in the adoption proceedings that Ray had begun the day after they got back from their honeymoon. Julie knew Ray loved her little girl. “You didn’t sign them, did you?”
“Ray,” Julie said and started to cry again. “Ray, he said – he said that…”
“She has a disease or something?”
Julie nodded and finally said, almost in a whisper, “She’s going to turn into a cat.”
Ray put his arms around Julie, and held her as she cried, “It’s going to be all right…”
“All right? All right? You think turning into a cat is all right!” She pushed him away.
“ Shh—what?”
Julie glared at him. “A cat, Ray. A big spotted cat.”
Ray looked beyond her to the door, and then back again. “Who said this?”
“A man named Malcolm King. He must know what he’s talking about because…“
“Because what?”
“Because I saw her donor turn into a cat, once.”
He sat back on the bed, pausing, studying her, watching her cry silent tears. “What gives this guy the right to say this to you?”
“He put his hand near her – he didn’t touch her, I was there, and I watched – and he said…he said it could happen at any time, or under emotional problems, or never.”
“That’s it,” Ray got up from the bed. He stood at the foot of the bed in only his boxers, and gathered his robe from the chair. Pointing accusingly at his wife he thundered, “He has no right – nobody has a right to come here telling you that Rosemarie’s got some sort of condition to make you sign papers. Do you have his number, anything to contact him with?”
“It’s downstairs – Ray!”
Ray was already moving, throwing open the bedroom door and heading down the corridor to the kitchen. First he went to the fridge and didn’t see it there. Julie wore shorts and a t-shirt to bed, so didn’t have a robe. He stalked around the kitchen, a caged tiger, thought Julie. She went to the address book, pulled it out and showed him the page she had taped his card onto.
Snatching up the cordless phone from its cradle, Ray started calling the number. He glared at the card. “Millennium City?”
“Michigan,” whispered Julie.
They both heard someone pick up. “Answering for him? Oh yeah, well you give him this message. You tell him to leave my wife and daughter alone, that we don’t ever want to see him, or his PARTNER ever again, and if I hear he’s been even THINKING about my wife and daughter, I’m going to slap him with a suit so fast it’ll make his head spin. You tell him that. You got it? Good.” He slammed the phone down. Twice.
“Daddy?” asked a little voice.
“Oh, honey,” said Julie, running to her daughter.
Ray stood in the kitchen, fuming, “That man you saw, Rosemarie? If you ever see him again, you tell an adult. He is NOT a good man.”
“Uh, uh, okay,” Rosemarie said, clutching her blanket to her. Julie picked her up. Rosemarie said quietly, almost plaintively, “But Blankie liked him…”