"They did what?!" Rachel glared at her roommate with a fierceness in her eyes that Allison had never seen before. The two women stood in the kitchen of their apartment, Rachel having just returned home from work.
"They arrested her," Allison repeated. "Right in front of the clinic. In broad daylight, around eleven this morning. I was with the group when it happened. We saw them taking her away."
"Why didn't you stop them?" Rachel demanded, in a tone bearing more frustration than criticism.
"We tried, Rachel," Allison said. "As soon as we realized what was happening, we tried to stop them. We ran across the lawn as fast as we could, but we were too late. By the time we got there, they already had her in the car and were taking off down the driveway."
Rachel ran a hand anxiously through her hair. She was having great difficulty believing the events that her roommate was reporting to her. "Why would they arrest her?" Rachel wondered aloud, throwing her hands out from her sides. "What could she have done?"
"I don't know, Rache," said Allison. "It doesn't make sense. Eppie's not the type to go around breaking the law."
"I can't believe it," Rachel said, trying to cope with the news. "I can't believe they would do that. I can't believe Eppie would let them do that." She looked searchingly at Allison. "Don't you think Eppie would have resisted, even a little? Don't you think she would have fought back?"
Allison paused before she replied. "I think they tricked her," she finally said.
Rachel squinted at her roommate in disbelief.
"I think they must have tricked her into going with them," Allison said. "Or at least into walking over to the car with them."
"What do you mean?"
"When I first saw Eppie in front of the clinic," Allison explained, "she was sitting on one of the benches near the flagpole, right in the middle of the front lawn. Jennifer pointed her out to me. There were two cops standing in front of her, talking to her. Then she stood up and walked with them, voluntarily, to their car. The three of them talked there for another minute or so, then they put the cuffs on her. It wasn't until that point that I realized what was going on. They had her in the car before I could get over there."
"That doesn't make any sense," Rachel said, shaking her head. "Why would the cops act that way?"
Allison gave her an intense look. "The cops knew who she was, Rachel. They saw that she was sitting too close to us, and they knew that we would protect her if they tried to arrest her anywhere near us. They must have said something to her to get her as close to their car as possible before making the arrest. Then they hustled her out of there as fast as they could."
Rachel looked at Allison in bewilderment. "But how could they know..." Her voice trailed off into silence as a blank look came over her face. Then the realization hit her in an instant, and a fierce anger flamed up inside her. "That son-of-a-BITCH!" she screamed.
An empty glass flew off the kitchen counter with a vicious slap from Rachel's hand. It sailed across the room and smashed into the wall, shattering into a hundred tiny pieces.
Allison attempted to calm her roommate. "Now just relax, Rachel," she urged. "We can deal with this."
"Oh, I'm going to deal with him," Rachel vowed. "There's no way he gets away with this. Not one fucking way."
Her energy surged from deep within her, and she began to pace rapidly back and forth across the room, trying to control her growing rage.
"How dare he lock up a girl who's seven months pregnant," she growled. "And for what? Because she made him look bad in front of a bunch of reporters? That bastard has got some balls."
She stormed into the living room, snatched her purse off the coffee table and started rifling through it.
"And then he expects people to elect him governor of the goddamn state! Well, he's got another thing coming. As soon as I get Eppie bailed out, I'm going right back to the newspapers with this. If he thinks he's been getting bad press lately, he's going to die when he reads what I'm going to tell them. Where the hell are my keys?"
She threw the purse down in frustration and started across the room again. Allison stepped in front of her.
"Please, Rachel, calm down for just a minute," Allison pleaded. "I know you're angry at your father right now, but we've got to deal with Eppie's situation first."
"I know, I know," said Rachel, not letting Allison stop her as she continued searching for her keys. "I'll go get Eppie out of jail first. Then all three of us are going to go over to the Gazette and tell everything we know to anybody who'll listen."
"That's what I mean," said Allison. "We can't get Eppie out of jail."
Rachel stopped her search instantly and looked at Allison in stunned silence. "What did you say?" she finally asked.
"We can't get her out, Rache," Allison said. "I went down to the police station right after they drove her away from the clinic. They gave me the runaround for over two hours down there. First they told me that they didn't know anything about an arrest. Then they admitted that they had arrested her, but that she was being processed at some other site and they didn't know when she would be arriving there. Finally they told me that she was being held at the station, but that she couldn't have any visitors. They gave me the name of a juvenile case officer who was handling the case, but there was no answer at her office when I called the first time. I called back every ten minutes and left three or four messages, but she never called me back. Finally I drove over to her office and got hold of her there."
Allison stopped suddenly, as if she didn't want to go on. Rachel stared at her roommate impatiently, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "And?" she said.
Allison took a breath before continuing. "And the case officer told me that your guardianship of Eppie has been suspended. She said that Eppie's case is under review by the Office of Child Welfare. She said that Eppie is being charged with a crime, assault on a security officer, and that as a result your guardianship of her is suspended until they can investigate the matter."
Allison's shoulders sank as she continued. "It's a felony, Rachel," she said. "They can hold her for a long time on this if they want to. I don't know how they managed to do all of this so quickly, but apparently they did. The bottom line is that you won't be able to bail her out right away, and in the long run you may not be able to regain custody of her at all. Technically, she's a ward of the city now."
Rachel's entire body went numb with rage, and she found it impossible to stand still. Without a word to Allison, she marched to the coat closet and threw open the door. She tore her coat off its hanger and felt through the pockets, finally locating her keys. She stabbed her arms through both sleeves of the coat and headed for the front door.
"Rachel, listen to me for a minute," Allison implored once again. "I know how we can handle this."
"Save it, Allison," Rachel said bluntly as she left the apartment. "I've got some long overdue business to take care of first."
Rachel felt her blood pressure soar as she descended the stairs and climbed behind the wheel of her car. As she pulled out onto the street, her foot jammed the accelerator hard against the floor and the engine wound up angrily for several seconds before she leveled the car off at a high but steady speed. She drove across town recklessly, her knuckles ivory white against the steering wheel as her fingers squeezed into it with a vice-like grip. She passed through three stop signs with only slight deceleration, slowing just enough to glance hastily in each direction for crossing traffic, then punching the gas again to return to her former speed. She made a wide, squealing turn around the last corner and pulled the car to a screeching stop along the curb in front of her parents' house.
Lights shone through the windows on the west side of the house, where the kitchen and the dining room looked out over the side yard. Good, Rachel thought, he was probably just sitting down to dinner. She wanted this encounter to be as inconvenient for him as possible. If he could see fit to throw the lives of others into turmoil, he had no right to enjoy an undisturbed meal.
She slammed the car door closed behind her and marched up the driveway to the porch on the side of the house. She looked in the dining room window, and her eyes were met with a sight which threatened to instantly defuse the anger that burned inside of her. Through the curtains she saw her mother seated at one end of the dining table, the woman's hands resting passively in her lap as she stared expressionless across the nearly empty table. A clean place setting sat perfectly laid out before her, and a second identical setting sat immediately to her right. Two candles in glass holders, as yet unlit, occupied the center of the table. Her mother was alone in the room, waiting, it seemed, for her dinner to be served to her.
Rachel turned away from the window, her hands reaching out and gripping hard onto the porch railing. Damn it, she thought, she didn't need to see that. Her anger dissipated momentarily, and she fought to recover it. She wanted her rage to be good and raw when she confronted her father. She knew that she could not win Eppie's freedom simply by demanding it, but that was not her mission at the moment. She sought only to vent years of bitterness at the man she had loved more than any other in her childhood, but whom as an adult she had grown to despise more and more with each passing day. She recalled the thought of Eppie being hauled away in a police car under false pretenses and the legal chicanery that was being used to keep her unjustly confined, and her anger returned to full boil.
She walked over and pounded mightily on the door. The glass in the window of the door rattled loudly, and Rachel thought for a moment that it might break. She didn't care. She waited a couple of seconds and then hammered on the door again with the side of her closed fist. A few seconds later the knob turned and the door was pulled open from within. Rachel's father stood in the doorway and looked at her as if he had been expecting her arrival for some time.
"Hello, Rachel," he said matter-of-factly. "What brings you over here?" His voice contained not a hint of emotion, and it struck her as smug and indifferent.
"Don't 'Hello, Rachel' me, you bastard," she hissed, pointing a finger in her father's face. "I know what you've done and I know why you've done it, and I just came over to tell you to your face that you're not going to get away with it. You're so concerned about your piss-poor public image that you'll do anything to try to save it. Well, I've come to tell you that you've made a big mistake, mister wanna-be-governor. I'm going to tell every reporter in this state the truth behind your little charade. If you think Eppie made you look like an ass last weekend, you haven't seen anything yet."
She glared into her father's eyes and braced herself to pounce upon whatever sorry excuse he might try to offer her. But her father only stood there calmly, in no apparent hurry to engage her in an argument.
"Who is it, dear?" her mother's voice called from the dining room.
"It's Rachel, honey," her father called back.
"Who?"
"Rachel, dear," he repeated toward the dining room. "Your daughter. She's come by to pay us a visit." The Mayor looked at his daughter. "Why don't you come in and sit with your mother for a while? She hasn't seen you in such a long time."
"Don't try to change the subject on me," Rachel said. "I know what you're trying to do, and it won't work. Unless you call up your goons right now and tell them to let Eppie go, I'm going to flush your whole political career right down the toilet where it belongs."
Her father looked at her with utter dispassion, appearing completely unflustered. "Come now, Rachel," he said soothingly. "Come sit with your mother. She misses you so much. She was asking about you just this morning."
"No!" Rachel screamed. "I won't fall for your bullshit! If you want to pretend that there's nothing wrong, then you go right ahead. I didn't expect you to do the right thing anyway." She felt her emotions rise up within her, and she struggled to hold back her tears.
"What's going on out there?" her mother called.
"Nothing, dear," her father replied. "Rachel and I are just talking. I'll be there in a minute." He turned back to his daughter. "I have to take your mother's dinner off the stove now," he said. "You're welcome to join us if you'd like, and if you can keep a civil tongue in your mouth. Otherwise, goodnight."
Rachel felt the tears well up in her eyes. "I hate you," she spat at him. "I don't know what my mother ever saw in you. I'm sorry I'm your daughter."
The Mayor closed the door on his daughter without another word, and Rachel heard the lock being turned again from the inside. She stood alone on the porch in the dark and cried softly into her hand. Her fingers trembled as she wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to collect herself.
She stepped away from the door and again watched her mother through the window as she sat alone in the dining room. The woman remained completely motionless, and Rachel would have thought she was asleep save for the fact that her eyes were open. Rachel could not remember her ever looking more sad or lifeless.
A minute later her father entered the room and set two dishes of food on the table. He then left the room and returned almost immediately with a serving pitcher. He sat down in the chair next to his wife and poured two glasses of what appeared to be iced tea, then he lit the two candles in the center of the table. After spooning modest portions from the dishes onto both of their plates, he bowed his head and folded his hands in prayer. His wife did the same.
Rachel watched through tear-filled eyes as her parents said grace, then she turned and walked slowly off the porch and back down the driveway. She dug a small box of tissues from the glove compartment of her car and wiped her eyes and blew her nose several times before starting the engine. On her way home she drove with much more restraint, stopping completely at every stop sign and using the extra time to calm her nerves.
By the time she arrived back at the apartment, she had managed to compose herself, but her energy was gone and she felt completely drained. She carried herself slowly up the stairs and reentered the apartment with a lifeless air.
Allison was sitting on the sofa watching television when Rachel came in and sank into a chair. Allison looked at her sympathetically.
"So how's the old man?" she asked.
Rachel let out a long sigh. "He's a son-of-a-bitch, Allie," she said, a look of weariness and defeat upon her face. "My father is still a rotten son-of-a-bitch."
Allison got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. A few seconds later Rachel heard a cork pop, followed by the soft chugging sound of liquid being poured from a bottle. Allison returned with two glasses of red wine.
"Here you go," she said, handing one of the glasses to Rachel. "I think what you need right now is a glass of wine and a good night's sleep."
Rachel managed a weak smile as she accepted the glass from her roommate and took a long sip. The wine went warm and smoothly down her throat. "Sorry about the glass," she said, reclining her head against the back of the chair.
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