House Arrest

House Arrest
Copyright © 2011 by Ellen Meeropol
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

eBook layout by Marcus Slater
Book design by Mark E. Cull

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meeropol, Ellen.
House Arrest : a novel / Ellen Meeropol.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59709-499-3 (alk. paper)
1. Nurses—Fiction. 2. Pregnant women—Fiction. 3. Home detention—Fiction. 4. Cult members—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.E375H68 2011
813’.6—dc22
2010040787

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
Pasadena, CA
www.redhen.org

Acknowledgements

The women in my manuscript group read these chapters more than once, with patience and insight. My deep appreciation to Lydia Kann, Kris Holloway, Jacqueline Sheehan, Rita Marks, Marianne Banks, Dori Ostermiller, and Brenda Marsian.

I am grateful for the support, friendship, and mentorship I received from the Stonecoast MFA community. Thank you Lee Hope, A. Manette Ansay, Michael C. White, Alan Davis, Lesléa Newman, Ann Hood, Meriah Crawford, David Page, and especially the Vanettes: Sarah Stromeyer, Ginnie Gavrin, Sharon Doucet, and Perky Alsop.

Thank you to those who generously shared their expertise and knowledge with me—Amy Romanczuk, Liz and Jim Goldman, Jane Bobowicz, Juanita Martínez, Jane Frey, Ruth and Sam Small, Rabbi Amita Jarmon, Rhoda Boughton, Hermine Levey Weston, Susan Galvin, Frances Goldin, Joan Grenier, Jon Weissman, and Bill Newman. Many thanks also to publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek, agent Roger S. Williams, and to Kate Gale and all the staff at Red Hen Press.

This book owes a great debt to my former patients at Shriners Hospital and their families, who taught me about spina bifida, about latex allergy, and about perseverance.
My daughters graciously invited these characters into our family, allowing them to monopolize many visits and conversations. Thank you, Jenn and Rachel.

Finally and always, thank you, Robby. For everything.

For Robby, life partner in everything

1 ~ Emily

I tried to get out of the assignment. Prenatal visits to a prisoner? Okay, house arrest, same difference. I couldn’t believe that I was supposed to take care of a woman whose child died in a cult ritual. What kind of mother could get so involved in an oddball religion that she’d let her baby freeze to death? And what kind of name was Pippa?

Don’t get me wrong. Every patient deserves expert and compassionate care. Even the most despicable criminal. I learned that in nursing school and I believe it, really. Still, this assignment gave me the creeps.

Driving to her house that mid-November morning, I knew precious little about Pippa Glenning or her cult. Just that she was under house arrest, which is why I had to visit her every week for routine prenatal monitoring. I knew that her daughter and another kid had died during a religious ceremony in Forest Park last December, their bodies discovered months later. I hadn’t paid much attention to the hype of the newspaper articles, but I remembered the headlines: the Frozen Babies Case.

From the assignment sheet, I knew she was twenty-one. Not awfully young to have a baby. A second baby, I reminded myself. No medical records. That did not bode well. Neither did the scrawled sentence in the space for primary care provider: We don’t believe in your medicine. Under Religion was written Family of Isis. Ditto for Household Composition: Family of Isis.

Okay, so Ms. Glenning lived in a cult. Nurses meet lots of oddballs. How different could a cult be from a commune? I’d had patients in communal households before. It always gave me a twinge, because my parents lived in a commune in Ann Arbor before I was born, and that ended badly. And some people thought my own living situation was weird; I shared the bottom half of a duplex a few blocks away with my cousin Anna and her disabled daughter, and Anna’s ex-husband Sam lived upstairs.

I am good at this work, I reminded myself as I turned onto the block where the Family of Isis lived. Pioneer Street was new to me. Crowded with triple-decker houses, it sat on the boundary line of the historic Forest Park neighborhood, far removed from the elegant homes along the park and from the duplexes like Anna’s, neatly painted to emulate the park-side style. Pioneer Street didn’t even try. Pippa Glenning’s house was an anomaly, set back from the cracked sidewalk with a single front door. No rusty bikes chained to the downspout at the corner of the house. No broken flowerpots on the stoop or piled scrap lumber from an unfinished porch repair. No tire swing dangling from the low branch of the single oak in the front yard. How many people lived inside and why didn’t their lives spill out into the yard the way their neighbors’ did? Didn’t their children have bikes or red wagons? I parked, took my supplies from the trunk, and rang the doorbell.

I am always excited on the first visit. I think I’m at my best with my patients. And I’m curious. Okay, nosy. I like seeing how regular people live. But I already knew that Pippa Glenning wasn’t regular. I rang the doorbell again and listened to the silence.

The young woman who opened the heavy front door was short and round. Stocky, but not fat, not at all. Spiky yellow hair framed a circular face like the crayoned rays around a child’s drawing of a sun. Her eyeglasses were shaped like a pair of wings, set with sparkles. Eyes such a dark blue they were almost black, with puffiness around them. Losing sleep?

“You from the nursing agency?” Her voice had a trace of a southern accent. Her mouth was round, just like her body. I might have called it generous, except that it didn’t smile. She held her head to the side in the same graceful tilt as the orange cat at her feet. I felt tall and gawky.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m Emily Klein.”

“Well, I’m Pippa. Come on in.” She turned away into the dim hallway.

My heart hammered. This is just another patient, part of the job, I reminded myself. I took a slow breath, bumped my rolling backpack over the threshold step, and entered Pippa Glenning’s home. I followed her through the dining room, past the commune-sized table covered with a relief map of Massachusetts. Fresh green paint glistened on the Berkshires. My father helped me make a map like that in third grade. Would I ever have a child, to help make paper maché projects for school? Anyway, in a few years Zoe would have assignments like that, and I knew my cousin Anna would let me help.

So there must be kids living here. School-age kids. I hoped the Department of Social Services was keeping a close eye, given what happened to their little brother and sister, or whatever relation those poor babies were.

“How many children live here?” I asked Pippa.

“Two.” She kept walking. “We can talk in the living room.”

Our footsteps echoed on the wood floor. The kids must be in school. I thought about the other adults, tried to imagine cult members working nine-to-five jobs.

At the arched entrance to the living room, I forgot my musings about relief maps and cult employment. The painting stretched eight, ten feet long, covering the entire wall over the fireplace. The artist had applied thick pigment liberally so the intense color exploded from the canvas. The half-woman, half-bird creature watched me, an expression of suspicion on her exotic features. Her massive wings were outstretched. She nursed a baby against one breast and embraced a large black cat against the other.

“Isis,” Pippa said.

I might have imagined the mockery in her tone.

Pippa sat on the sofa and pointed to an easy chair. “Have a seat.”

I thought about asking if we could talk in the kitchen, away from this painting, but that would give voice to my discomfort. My job was to accept all my patients as they were, with respect. No matter what my personal feelings were about New Age Goddess-worship or oddball households. No matter how I felt about people who let their children freeze to death in the snow, and then got pregnant again when other people had no children at all, I would do my professional best to help Pippa Glenning have a healthy pregnancy and a strong baby. So I sat down on the edge of the chair, angled my back towards the painting, and took my laptop from the backpack.

Other than the painting, the living room was ordinary. The furniture was mismatched, like bargains from second-hand shops, except for the pair of button-back chairs upholstered in mustard yellow brocade and facing each other in front of the bay windows. On one chair, a sleek black cat slept curled up in bands of sunlight sliced by the Venetian blinds. The orange cat jumped onto the other one and began purring, harsh and sputtering like a tractor.

“Are those chairs Victorian?” I asked.

Pippa shrugged.

“They could be valuable, if there’s a manufacturer’s mark on the bottom. Somebody and Sons.” My Aunt Ruth said that symbol made her button-back chair her nest egg for old age. But Aunt Ruth would never have allowed cats on her nest egg. “Check under the seat sometime.” I let my voice trail off into silence. Why was I babbling about antique chairs?

Pippa poured from a round-bellied clay teapot. “It’s red raspberry leaf tea.”

I might have frowned, because Pippa put her cup down, sip untaken.

“Thank you,” I said quickly.

“We make it ourselves. It’s a favorite at the Tea Room,” Pippa said. “It’s good for pregnancy, to tone the womb and prevent miscarriage.”

I bit my lip. Raspberry tea was fine in the last few weeks of pregnancy to prepare the uterus for labor, but this early it could trigger a miscarriage. Once Pippa trusted me, we would talk about herbal teas, but now she probably wouldn’t listen.

“Tea Room?” I asked.

“Our family business, the House of Isis Tea Room at the X. Homegrown organic teas served in hand-thrown teapots and cups. Fresh baked cookies, too.”

I had driven by that oddly painted storefront a dozen times, barely noticing. I’d have to pay more attention, but now there was a lot to cover. I took two paper towels from my pack and spread them on the coffee table. Put the laptop on one and supplies on the other. Stethoscope. Waterless hand wash. Blood pressure cuff. Urine test strips. Pamphlets on healthy pregnancy.

“Excuse me.” Pippa pointed at the table. “But what’s that for?”

“What’s what for?”

“Paper towels. You think the table will contaminate your stuff? Our house is clean.”

“No, no. It’s to protect you. So I don’t bring germs from another patient into your home.” I felt myself flush and hoped it didn’t show. Rules are fine, but I despise the paper towel policy. My boss Marge was fierce about it, though. Infection control regulations. Rumor had it that Marge fired a nurse once for not following protocol. I looked at Pippa’s round face. “It’s a dumb rule. Insulting. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pippa said with a gracious wave of her hand. “Let’s get on with this. Don’t you have questions or something?”

While I logged on the computer and opened the Intake file in the Glenning folder, I explained the health interview, blood pressure and weight checks, the urine tests for protein, sugar and bacteria. Then I started the questions. “Marital status?”

“Single.” The orange cat deserted the button-back chair and jumped onto Pippa’s lap, burrowing into her armpit.

“Your baby’s father? How do you pronounce his name?”

“Tee-in.” Pippa put the emphasis on the first syllable.

“Tian,” I repeated slowly, postponing the next question. “Other children?”

“Abigail died last December. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me about her?”

“No.” Pippa stroked the cat’s deep fur with both hands.

I looked back at the screen. “Who lives in the household?”

“My family.”

“Who’s in your family?” The big house felt empty. If anyone else was home, they were staying out of sight.

Pippa bristled, her spiky hair quivering. “None of your beeswax.”

Okay, I could understand her protecting her privacy. I certainly had my own secrets. But I was trying to help.

The black cat stretched, jumped down from his chair. He ignored the fingers I wiggled at him and strutted out of the room. His exit was a snub. Not that I was thrilled with this interview either. I was twelve years older than Pippa, but clearly she was in charge. I needed to draw her out.

“What are your cats’ names?” I asked.

“That was Bast, who just left.”

“I’ve never heard that name.”

Pippa pointed at the black cat in the painting. “An ancient Egyptian cat-deity.”

I smiled. “He’s beautiful.”

“She. And this is Newark.” The orange cat arched as Pippa stroked the curve of his back.

“Another god?”

Pippa threw me an odd look. “Like, New Jersey? Tian is from Newark.” The orange cat settled again in Pippa’s lap, the diesel purr loud.

I rummaged in the backpack, pretending to look for something. Usually I liked the intimacy of visiting patients in their homes. Especially the elderly, who were often lonely and eager to talk. Sometimes Marge assigned me the kids, because once I mentioned I help my cousin Anna at home with her daughter’s procedures and therapies. And often I got the women with high-risk pregnancies at home on bed rest, because I worked labor and delivery in Portland before I moved down to Massachusetts. Maybe that’s why I got stuck with Pippa.

How could I rescue this interview? I rubbed my index finger along my nose. A nervous habit, Anna says. My nose changes directions halfway down, and there’s a bump at the crooked part. I’m sure that’s the first thing people notice about me. Sometimes when I feel people staring, I explain that birth forceps squished my nose and that I might go back to school and become a midwife. If I do, I’ll never use forceps. I’ll bet Pippa’s cult doesn’t believe in forceps deliveries either.

Any early swelling of pregnancy was hidden by her spring-green jumper, where lush wildflowers grew across the meadow of fabric hanging to her ankles. Something about the serene way she sat, hands resting lightly on the cat, suggested a southern lady. Then I remembered about house arrest and the monitoring device. I tried to sneak a peek at Pippa’s feet among the fabric folds.

Pippa stuck her right foot out, lifting her skirt to display a black beeper-sized box strapped snugly to her ankle. “Is this what you’re looking for?” Then she grinned and her mouth did look generous for a moment.

“Does it bother you?”

“Not if I wear a sock.” Pippa slid her index finger between the rubber strap and the white cotton. “After my shower I get big red welts that itch like crazy. When I put a sock on, the blotches and itching fade away.”

“How does it work?”

“The ankle thingy sends electronic signals to that box.” Pippa pointed to a black plastic cube on the mantel between a vase of dried cattails and a telephone. It looked more like a video game console than part of a surveillance system. “The box transmits the signals through the telephone line to the police station. All done by computer. If I leave the house without permission, it has a conniption fit and they send in Sherman’s army, or whatever you have up here.”

“Up here? Where’re you from?” Good. She was opening up a little.

“Georgia, a long time ago.”

“I’m from Maine, a long time ago.” I was surprised to hear myself offer that information and steered the subject back. “So the monitor keeps track of everything you do?”