The Ties That Bind (19 page)

"Holy crap, kid," the attendant said before switching back to his show persona. "Winner, winner. We have a winner. Here's one large elephant for one of the lovely ladies." 

At this point, he handed out the elephant and started paying attention to the people behind me who had been watching.

"Don't be shy. You saw how easy this young man made it. You, too, can step up and win a prize.”

I couldn't help but laugh to myself. Even though he hadn't expected me to win so easily, he still found a way to turn my good fortune to his advantage.

I handed the elephant over to Tami, who thought elephants were cute. I was rewarded by a fairly long kiss, and the hooting and hollering from the crowd still around the booth.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon went about the same as we made our way along the midway, winning a prize for each of the girls. We punctuated this by stopping and eating junk food a bunch of times. So much so, that Vicki stopped several times to say how happy she was that her body was enhanced, otherwise she was afraid she would look like a beach ball by the time we left. Of course, she said that after polishing off a giant turkey leg, two ice cream cones, and a funnel cake!

By the end, we looked a little ridiculous with all the big, fluffy animals being carried. It was getting into mid-afternoon and I knew we needed to start heading back. But first, we had to find Tina and her friends. Most of our time had been spent on or near the midway, so I knew she wasn't there. We started wandering around looking for her until we came to a crowd next to the tilt-a-whirl that was blocking our path.

I was a little annoyed when we came across a large group of people stopped in the pathway, blocking what was more or less the only way through to the next area of the carnival, the only area we hadn't checked yet. As politely, but forcibly as I could, I pushed my way through the crowd with the girls trailing behind me. What I saw when I got to the end of the people gathered around shocked and infuriated me.

Tina was on the ground, holding the side of her face and her friends were moving back toward the crowd, except for Judy who was at Tina's side, half covering her in a protective manner. In a half circle around her, stood Steven Mertz and what I could only assume were some of his cronies.

"You don't leave me, bitch. I put up with your whiny ass for months, and you just up and walk away when your pussy brother comes calling. I don't think so.”

He started to move forward aggressively towards Tina and Judy. I was too far from him to do anything physical so I decided I had to go another route.

"Hey!" I yelled as loudly as I could. "What the hell do you think you're doing?”

He flinched a little when he noticed me. I am almost certain he didn't expect me to show up out of the crowd. But he had his buddies to worry about, and with guys like this, the last thing they want to do is look like a coward.

"Get lost. I don't know what you said to her, but Tina is coming back to me.”

I had distracted him enough to give myself time to stand over Tina and Judy, protecting them with my body. I noticed the girls had dropped their stuffed animals, and were spreading out to watch his friends. I was about to move to intercept him physically when I saw a uniform push its way through the other side of the crowd, behind Mertz, causing me to alter my tactics.

"Big man hitting a girl. Too afraid to go after someone your own size?”

"Bitch had it coming. I didn't hurt her; just let her know what a real man is.”

I laughed in his face. The cops were getting closer and I wanted him to make a move.

"A real man?" was all I got out before laughing again.

My girls had all stopped their movement and were looking at me confused. I know they were wondering why I hadn't taken this punk down yet.

My laughing in his face did the trick, and he took a swing at me. Even for regular people it was telegraphed and slow. With my reactions, it was no trouble at all to shift backwards and let it whiff by me. He was just recovering, and getting ready to try again when a hand grabbed him from behind.

"Hold it," the officer shouted.

She grabbing his hand while her partner corralled the other kids standing around. I recognized my old friend Officer Jawarski.

"Hey, ok, ok," Mertz said as he was pulled back by Jawarski. "I didn't do nothin.”

She looked up and glared at me, but I had kept my hands by my side the entire time and was already moving to help my sister up, while brushing her off. I was nearly positive she'd seen the whole thing, but my past history with her told me that didn't mean she wouldn't find a way to pin this on me.

"Yeah, I saw you not doing anything. Let’s take a walk," she snapped at him before handing him over to her partner.

"You and your friends get out of here. Go home and stop causing trouble," she said, turning around and walking off with Mertz.

While I wasn't happy about being told to get lost, that conversation went a lot different than it could have otherwise gone, so I took it as a win.

"You, ok?" I asked Tina as I pulled her off the ground.

She was rubbing her face but said, "I think so.”

"What happened," I asked both Tina and Judy. I saw my girls picking up their now slightly dirty stuffed animals and coming over to join us.

"Steven came out of nowhere, yelled at Tina for leaving him, and then slapped her," Judy offered while Tina was still rubbing her face.

I bent down to have a closer look and saw her eye starting to swell a little, "You're gonna have a little bit of a shiner in the morning.”

She started to cry softly.

"Hey, it's ok. He's gone. Let's get you home, ok?”

She had her head pressed against my chest, and nodded as her body shook from her quiet sobbing.

"Is she ok?" Zoe asked as she fell in alongside me.

"Yeah, she'll be fine. I think, mostly, she just got scared.”

Her friends were all quiet as we piled into our vehicles. It wasn't time for Mom to pick us up yet, so we just jammed everyone in the two we had, and made it work. Thank God, there wasn't an accident on the way home, or it could have been bad.

With the mood the way it was, the birthday party was more or less over. Megan promised to get all of Tina's friends home, although Judy stayed since her sister was still there. I sat on the couch and let Tina cuddle up with me. She was still pretty upset.

"What do we do about Margaret?" Mom asked once we explained to her everything that had happened.

I thought for a moment and asked, "About the black eye?”

"Yes," Mom continued. "With what we were told about how she has been acting, I am concerned she will see it and …”

"Flip out?" I supplied.

"Yes.”

"I'll go home with Tina," Judy said from where she stood in the doorway. "I had already planned on spending the night with her. We can tell her mom about Steven. It's the truth after all. With both of us, maybe she won't take it so bad.”

Tina finally sat up and wiped her eyes.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I think so. I was just scared, then embarrassed, then mad, then embarrassed again.”

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," I told her. "You didn't do anything wrong.”

She shrugged, "I guess. I just felt so weak lying there on the ground.”

"You aren't weak," I said, trying to give her as meaningful of a look as I could. "He is bigger than you. If you tried to go at him, he would have hurt you. You didn't have a lot of choices.”

"I guess," she said again.

I lifted her chin up to look at me, "Hey, seriously, you were never in that much trouble. You were in a public place, surrounded by friends and witnesses, and the cops would have been there before anything happened regardless of whether I showed up or not.”

She pulled out of my grip and said, "It's not just that. It's my stupidity that got me into this. If I hadn't encouraged that jack-off in the first place, none of this would have happened.”

"You don't really know what would have happened. Some guys don't need encouragement. Also, when it comes to giant, life-changing mistakes, you my friend are a
rookie
. You should take stock of all the things I screw up … on a daily basis!”

That got a smile out of her so I continued, "Seriously, I would never let anything bad happen to you. I will have Jonathan sniff around and see if there is anything else that can be done. He attacked you in front of witnesses, so maybe we can get a restraining order or something against him. Or get his ass thrown in jail. Trust me, in there he will realize how little of a man he really is.”

"Now that sounds like a plan," she said smiling.

As soon as Tina and Judy headed out the door, I made my way to the phone. I knew the girls were as concerned about her as I was, since they all stood around and listened to me making my call.

"You know, Caspian, you are starting to rack up quite the bill," Jonathan said with a laugh when he picked up the phone. He must have gotten caller ID and recognized my number, which wouldn't be surprising considering how often I seemed to be calling.

"Probably, and it's all totally worth it," I responded.

"So what is it I can do for you today?”

"I am not sure if you can help me directly, but you can point me in the right direction. Tina was attacked today at the carnival by an ex-boyfriend. He got hauled off by the police right after, but I wanted to make sure he doesn't come after Tina again. What would she need to do to get assault charges filed on him and what about the possibility of a restraining order?”

"On the assault charges, unless the arresting officer saw what happened, your sister would have to go down and fill out a complaint against him. Since she is a minor, her mother would have to be there also.”

"That is going to be a problem. Margret has been acting unstable recently. I am a little concerned about how she would handle the situation.”

"If that's the case then a restraining order is out also. As a minor pretty much everything has to go through her mother.”

"Damn.”

"If the police office was there right as it happened, there is a chance he saw everything and can be the person who files the report. They can't tell you directly, but we can make some inquires if the officer filed some kind of report through my contacts at the courthouse.”

"That is where things get tricky. It was Officer Jawarski.”

"And she saw you were involved also?”

"I wasn't really involved, just there. But yeah, she saw me.”

"Considering how things went in the past, that isn't good. Do you want me to see if I can talk to her and get a feeling for what is going to happen?”

I thought for a moment before answering, "No. I'll do it.”

"I don't know if that is a good idea Caspian.”

"Yeah, me either. But she did haul him off and didn't try and blame anything on me, so that's a step in the right direction I guess. No, this is something I think I need to deal with.”

"Ok. Well, call me back after you talk to her. If I don't hear back from you in a few hours, I'm gonna come and see if you wound up in lockup.”

I knew he was joking and laughed along, but I also meant it when I said, "Good thinking.”

Next of course, I had to find Officer Jawarski. After a short call, I was able to weasel the information out of Detective Casper, the detective who got me released after the scuffle with Tyler and his friends at the school. I hated to play on his guilt about the incident, but sometimes you have to use the tools available.

I found out she was eating lunch at a small burger shack on Lincoln Street. I had Zoe drive me out but wait in the car ... with instructions on how to bail me out if things went sideways.

I found the officer in the small dining area and stopped at the edge of her table.

"Officer Jawarski?" I said tentatively.

She looked up from her hamburger and glared, "What could you possibly want?”

"I was hoping for a minute of your time. I am aware you don't like me, but I also believe you are a good police officer. I was hoping to appeal to your sense of justice.”

"Make it quick," she said.

"Thank you," I said sliding into the seat across from her. "Yesterday you arrested a kid who attacked my sister. She is terrified of coming to press charges on him, afraid he will retaliate on her again. I talked to some people and they said if an officer saw what happened, it was possible for you to file a report on him.”

"Yeah," Was all she said. I was hoping she would see where I was going with this, but clearly, she didn't have any plan on making this easier on me.

"So, did you see enough to know what happened? And are you planning on filing a report on him?”

"I can't talk about ongoing cases," she said. Then she stopped and slammed down her food, "And who the hell do you think you are coming here and trying to pressure me into helping you with whatever plan you are hatching. Get the hell away from me!”

I sighed as I stood up from the table. I hadn't been put in handcuffs, yet anyway, and decided to take a parting shot.

"I wasn't trying to pressure you. I was just trying to get some peace of mind for a scared kid.”

I started to walk off when I heard from behind me, "He won't bother her again.”

I turned around but she was eating her food again and purposefully ignoring me. I wasn't even sure if what I heard was in my imagination or not. Either way, I had done what I could and now I had to wait and see what Jonathan found out from his friends at the courthouse.

I pushed all the drama with Tami's family and with Steven Mertz aside, since plans had been made and things were in motion. Between schoolwork picking up before the school closed down for spring break, and the expected deadline of the larger contract being ready approaching, I had other things on my mind.

On Monday, I pulled the girls, including Emily, off to an empty table to talk. Just after Christmas Emily had migrated to our lunch table and was starting to gel nicely with the rest of the gang as she came out of her shell. While I still worried about long term ramifications from the confrontation with her father, for the moment he was leaving her alone and that reprieve was doing her wonders.

"So, I've had a thought," I said once we were all at the empty table.

"That's what that smell was," Vicki said with a grin.

I just ignored her and kept going, "How would you guys feel about going away somewhere this summer?”

"Really?" Zoe said, perking up.

"Yeah. It's been a crazy year. I think a good end of the school year break would do us all good," I said.

My four girls thought for a moment and nodded, but Emily looked sad. "I don't know if I can. Things are going good at home, right now, but Dad is still annoyed every time I come and see you guys. I am worried that if I take off for a week or whatever, it will make things go back to the way they were.”

"I can talk to him," I offered. "I don't want you missing out on the fun just because you're worried.”

"It's not that," she said shaking her head. "I know that at first he only changed because of whatever you said to him, but he's been making an effort. He's even drinking less. I think it's best if I stay home.”

"Well, we still have time until the end of the school year. Let's play it by ear and see what happens," I said.

"Ok," she said, although she sounded unconvinced.

They all started talking about what we could do for vacation when Emily excused herself to go talk to one of her teachers. As soon as she walked away all three girls eyes tracked back to me.

"When are you going to bring her on board?" Zoe asked.

"When I am sure we have settled the stuff with her father," I replied.

Tami frowned and said, "Why do you need to wait?”

"Because she has enough stuff going on in her life, just with her dad. I mean, she doesn't want to go on vacation with us because of it. I buy her explanation, but it's still there, and it needs to be resolved. The last thing she needs is me going in and modifying her brain, giving her a whole new set of things to worry about.”

"I don't think it will cause her to worry," Vicki said.

"Maybe not," I said looking each girl in the eye. "But I want this to be clear. I am adamant that we clear up her family drama before adding our bullshit on top of it. I don't want you guys pressuring me to evolve her, or whatever, before I am ready. I gave in to the notion that she will join us eventually. Be happy with that victory.”

They could see that I was set and all mumbled agreement. I knew that wouldn't last and it wouldn't be the last I heard of it.

After school, I was making my way to Zoe's car to meet the rest of the girls and was surprised to find Sarah there instead.

"Hey, Sarah. What's up?”

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before asking, "What did you mean when you said you were going to evolve Emily?”

Lipreading, damn it! Of all the things, I expected her to say, this was down at the very bottom of the list. I would say I tried to play dumb, but the truth is it wasn't really an act.

"Uhh ... what?”

"At lunch you told Vicki and Zoe and Tami you didn't want to change Emily yet. That you wanted to wait to evolve her. What did that mean? What are you planning on doing to Emily?”

Damn it. First Josh, then Amanda, and now Sarah. We truly suck at keeping secrets. I thought about trying to pass it off as a lie, but couldn't figure out a way to do it and convince her. Sarah is fairly smart and if she observed the whole conversation, or at least my side of it since Vicki and Tami had their backs to Sarah at lunch, anything I might say would be an obvious lie. Which was something I wanted to avoid.

"Do you have some time this afternoon to come back with me and the girls?" I asked.

"What? Yes, I mean ... did you hear what I asked," she said, surprised at my seemingly abrupt change in direction.

"Yes, I did. But this conversation will take a while, and I would prefer to have the girls involved.”

Before she could answer, Zoe and Tami walked up.

"Vicki caught a ride home with Megan. She had some family stuff to take care of," Zoe said throwing an arm around my waist.

"No problem. Sarah is going to be coming back to our house for a little while," I told Zoe as we all piled into her car.

She gave me a questioning glance but didn't say anything. We drove home making small talk but I could tell Zoe and Tami were both very curious. They liked Sarah, but I hadn't invited her over to our house before.

Once home I lead everyone to the living room.

"Sarah came to me after school with some questions. Apparently, she read my lips during our conversation at lunch, after Emily left," I said when everyone had taken a seat.

"Ok," Zoe said, the importance of what Sarah had 'overheard' not clicking with her yet.

"She saw me talk about the concerns I had in
evolving
Emily.”

"Ohh," Tami said as both she and Sarah turned to look at Sarah.

"Yeah ... Ohh. Since the cat’s out of the bag, I would like you two to give her a brief overview of what is going on. I am going to go get us some drinks and a snack, then I'll answer any question I can, ok?" I said. This last part was directed at Sarah.

She just nodded as I got up and walked out of the room to let the girls do their thing. I always felt better when someone else could explain our situation. It seems incredibly conceited to go around telling people that you are a leap forward in evolution.

I puttered around in the kitchen for a while to give the girls time to explain everything. Eventually I made my way back out to the living room with a tray full of drinks and snacks. As soon as I crossed the doorway, Sarah's eyes found me, and tracked my movements. Even after I sat down, she kept staring at me.

"Pretty unbelievable, huh?" I said.

She just nodded her head.

"Did you have any questions for me?" I asked.

She thought for a moment and said, "Is this for real?”

"Yes," I answered. "I took us a while to figure it out; but thankfully Zoe's mom works as a researcher in genetics, and we have a pretty talented doctor helping us out, too. A lot of what the girls probably told you is still conjecture. It fits the information we have, but we are so far outside the bounds of normal that it's hard to say how much is guesswork and how much is fact. But yes, to the best of our knowledge, everything they told you is right.”

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked.

"For now, keep trying to figure things out," I said. "Long term our plan isn't that much different than anyone else's plans, at least genetically. I want to live a long and happy life, have kids, and raise them. The only difference is that when I have kids, we are almost certain, they will be an important step in spreading my genetic ... differences.”

I stopped to take a drink and gather my thoughts.

"If what we believe is true, that this is some sort of leap in human genetics, then it's important that we share those genetics with the world. Imagine hundreds of years from now, when my kids have kids, and their kids have kids, and so on. When my genetic line has spread far enough to constitute a significant part of the human population. Disease will be a thing of the past. People will live longer. And really that is by far the most minor of the effects it will have.”

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes. Hundreds of thousands of years ago our genetic ancestors' brains enlarged. That was a stunning leap in our evolution. With that increased capacity for thought, we were able to build tools. We could reason. We could invent. With it, we created the pyramids. We split the atom. We went to the moon. And that's all because of the change in how our brains work.”