The Heart Shaped Mosaic

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"Love you, need you."

I flipped the phone shut, and called my oldest son Edgar. A computer programmer by trade, he worked from his house across town where he lived with his wife and three children. He was reluctant to come over at first, but when he learned that Emily could be in trouble, he said he would drop everything and bring the program over.

As he drove across town, I got off the couch and began the awkward descent into my basement. My frustration grew as I descended the stairs, not as much with the mountain they had become over the years, but with my own inability to sally forth and play a larger part in my children's and grandchildren's lives. Emily had been such a gem: spending hours helping me with my manuscripts, looking after me when Mal wasn't home, taking me to the parade of doctors that becomes the lot of every senior citizen. I never wanted to see harm come to any of my eight children, but Emily was my special baby. Her boyfriend Stuart was polite enough the two times I saw him, but Sylvia's assessment made me think. He was much older that she was, and there was strange gleam in his eyes that bothered me.

Edgar let himself in upstairs. "Dad, Dad, where are you?"

"Downstairs, son."

A drum roll of footsteps brought him down where he found me at the computer. "Dad, you're getting too old to wander down here alone. I don't want to come over here and find you in a heap at the bottom of the stairs."

"All right, son, don't blather. I'm slow and I'm careful; I can go where I like. Don't worry about me. Did you bring the program?"

He brought out a flash drive and plugged it into my machine. "This will set it up. Do you have a recent picture of Emily?"

"Yes, I do, and it's on the hard drive." I pulled it up from my digital family album.

"I'll get the program installed and we'll find what we're looking for." A few keystrokes and the PicMatch program was running and ferreting out any sites that might have Emily's picture. It only took two minutes; and Edgar gasped as he saw the first screen. He shut the browser down immediately and made some more keystrokes to download more software from his flash drive.

"What are you doing, son?"

Edgar was engrossed in his work. "This--kind of site--is special," he said awkwardly. "We've got to install a program to surf undetected before we can look at this thoroughly. We've also got to get my hacker software loaded as well: I want to trace every direction this site links to, as well as everything I can find out about the man who put it together." When he finished, he scrubbed the memory of the machine, rebooted it, and went back to Emily's site. The content of the pages were too astounding to bear at first sight; it was illegal and forbidden. I got up and went to the window to look at the stars while Edgar activated his hacking program to probe more deeply. He copied files and made notes as I watched the stars wheel above me like a prisoner from his cell. Orion was marching high in the heavens when Edgar finished; I knew I would need that warrior's kind of valor before long.

7.8.2017

It was a glorious, late summer day at the lake cabin. At 6:00PM the temperature in the mid eighties and a rustle of breeze wafted golden puffs through the sky above the cabin. For a moment, I was worried that it would build into a shower, but a glance to the West and the direction of the wind indicated it wouldn't. Mal was busy in the kitchen preparing a feast for our horde: the older kids were swimming in the cove, Edgar (age 18) and Elizabeth (16) on one side opposite Sylvia (12) and Robert (a younger 12) on the other, and the younger kids were making mud pies on the lakeshore. Samuel (7), William (5), Christopher (5) and Emily (4) usually stuck together like a flock of baby geese, which made looking after them fairly easy from my point of view. The kids would scuffle and argue from time to time, but the squalls passed quickly and Mal and I rarely had to intervene.

As I lounged in my plaid shirts and jeans, feet up and lemonade at hand, the changes of the past 20 years still seemed incredible. I thought I would never become a parent and was totally at peace with the thought; I assumed that parenthood was a craft I could never master anyway. The transition from one child, to two, then to four within a year and then another four within a period of three years wasn't all easy, but we were making it and I could now call my life as contented as when it was just Charlene and I twenty years ago. We suffered horrible losses, deaths that left gaping holes in our family, but we found ways to cope and the children responded wonderfully, especially the older ones. Sixty-seven was a ridiculous age to be father of such a large, young, vibrant brood, but I sighed as I snuggled into the thought Mal and I were making it work.

A long wail approached, running up the path with only a bouncing, black headed set of curls in sight. Drama queen Emily was upset again by something the boys said. She came into full view, her face, arms, legs and dress caked heavily with mud, her bare feet gently pit-patting the ground. The skinny four-year-old who shared my birthday dashed up the stairs to throw herself in my arms and sob heavily on my shoulder. I held and rocked her until she was ready to talk. Her lips quivered when she finally confided her grief to me.

"The boys called me a doody head, said I was stupid and slow and I don't know how to make mud pies right. They said if my mommy were alive she wouldn't love me 'cause I'm such a doody head, and my hair's the wrong color to be in this family. They said I was lucky to be their sister and if I wasn't careful, they'd kick me out of the family for being a doody head." A fresh set of sobs wracked her little body as she buried her head in my chest while gripping me tightly with her bare arms. I sighed and chastised myself for being too complacent: I should have known things seemed a bit too blissful for one afternoon.

I broke out my paterfamilias voice and called the younger boys to come up to the cabin, but they ignored me. A blast from my air horn brought them running; their pace slackened dramatically as they approached the cabin. The three little mudballs stood meekly before me as I looked at their sheepish expressions; they knew they were busted.

"Did you call your little sister a doody head?"

Six eyes refused to meet mine, and a faint, ragged chorus of yeses insinuated my ears.

"Did you tell your little sister that her hair was the wrong color to be in this family?" The same timid chorus repeated their mantra of admission.

"Did you tell your little sister that her mommy wouldn't love her if she were alive today?"

Another mantra from the penitent chorus.

"You will sit on the edge of the porch facing the cabin for fifteen minutes in time out. If your mother comes out, you are to tell her exactly why you're in time out. If I hear of you saying anything this mean to your sister again, the next time I will punish you more. There will come a time when you will have to take care of your little sister, and I expect you to protect her from anything that might hurt her. Think about that while you're sitting here quietly."

Emily was almost too big for me, but I carried her around the corner of the cabin that had a better view of the lake. She gasped and aahed as caught sight of the sailboats: she was easily entranced by them. Her foul mood lightened and she pointed out breathlessly the different colors and types of boats on the lake. When I was sure her mood was buoyant again, I looked her squarely in the face and said, "Do you know whose hair color's the same as yours?" She shook her head. "Mine. You are the only one of my children who got my hair color."

She laughed at me. "Don't be silly. Your hair isn't black, Poppi, it's white, it's always been white."

"Well, when I was your age it was black just like yours, and I'll show you some pictures to prove it when we get home tonight. You are not a doody head; you are one of the smartest little girls I've ever known. And your mommy loved you very much; she loves you today up in heaven, I know it."

She looked down for a minute, then back out at the sailboats. We went back around as the boy's punishment ended, and I blasted the air horn twice to call the older kids in. They came up the path, and I pointed around the corner of the cabin. "We have four little mudballs here who need to be hosed down before supper. The towels are in the usual place inside. Get going." The children gleefully dashed around the corner to the hose; I put Emily down with a gentle pat on her backside to propel her after them and entered the cabin to give my Mal a kiss.

A dubious look greeted me. "Finished playing peacemaker, Daddy?"

I snuck a potato chip from the table where sandwiches, pickles, chips and carrots waited for our attention. "I know Emily's a drama queen, but Samuel and the twins hit her below the belt today," I said. "They need to know what's unfair to say to somebody, even if it's their sister, and she needs to know we love her even though she's different. I worry about when she'll want to start imitating Morgan. She's much more vulnerable than her mother ever was."

My lady turned to give me a big hug and a kiss. "Look who turned into the protective daddy at last. We'll be there for her; she'll be fine."

"How did we ever get to be parents of such a mob?"

Incredulity curled her face. "Well, from time to time, you've gotten tired of oral sex. . ."

I smacked her backside. "Smart ass, you know what I mean. We didn't plan this when we set up our arrangement."

"Well, the first three was a fairly normal family-making strategy, and Morgan added Robert. We've never had to worry about money, between our book sales, Morgan's burgeoning fortune, and doting relatives around the corner ready to spoil them. About five years later, I was ready for another baby, then we thought he should have a sibling two years younger, but we got two for the price of one. Then Morgan had Emily. . ." Her voice trailed off into somber silence, and I held her closer, resting our foreheads on each other's in silence for a long time

.

Shrieks and laughter tumbled through the windows; flesh colored imps flashed through our view. "Let's see what's going on outside," she said as we wrapped our arms around each other to go out the door and look in on the kids.

The children were having a grand water fight; the older kids still in their swimsuits squirting the little ones with the hose and dousing them with their drink glasses, and the little ones devoid of their muddy clothes were darting in naked innocence through the clearing and ducking behind trees. Mal looked as if she were going to put a stop to it after a minute, but I pulled a bucket of water out of the rain barrel and upended it over her head before she could say anything. We played with the water for a half hour in the fading light before drying off on the porch and going in to eat our supper in the reddening evening, wearing towels. Loading the vans took an instant and we were headed home.

I looked in on Samuel, William and Christopher to show no hard feelings through some fatherly horseplay. Then I looked in on my little drama queen to make sure she was still in good spirits as she fell asleep.

12.10.2030 (small hours)

I clicked through one picture after another from Emily's pornographic website all night long, pausing to look down at Edgar's notes from time to time. He found all of it: the abuse, the lies, the manipulation, Stuart's criminal record. Tears coursed down my cheeks from time to time, and I went back upstairs painfully a couple of times for glasses of water to keep from dehydrating. Opening Morgan's old pictures, the difference sprang out immediately: Morgan clearly loved what she was doing, no matter what pose; Emily clearly hated what she was doing, no matter what pose. Of course Emily found her mother's site a year ago, as Edgar discovered from her computer, and I cursed myself for not telling her about it sooner. I felt impotent, numb, useless, a failure. Yet I kept clicking through the awful pictures of Emily, obsessively burning them into my brain so I could not hide from the truth. My daughter needed me, and my heightened outrage would give me strength and energy to carry through the ugly tasks of the day to come.

Shortly after dawn, the door opened upstairs. "Poppi, where are you? You tried to call me last night; sorry I couldn't get back to you."

"Down here, Little Bird." I was amazed that my voice carried up the stairs, as weak and strangled as it was, but she pounded down the stairs two at a time to get to the basement. She was the image of her mother at the same age, except for the coal black hair that was my contribution to her genetic makeup, above medium height and just flowering into womanhood. She wore purple sweats and black tennis shoes; her eyes were alive with worry until she saw the computer monitor beside me, when they turned livid. "I have to apologize to you, Little Bird," I said gravely.

She stood straight and defiant like a defendant before a court; tears began whipping down her cheeks.. "No, father, no. It's not like that. You need to listen to me; it's not what it looks like. Please, Poppi, please."

"Honey, I should have told you about your mother's website. We should have taken it down, but her will stipulated that we leave it up as long as it made money for you and your brother Robert. Your mother loved you both so much, wanted you both so much, wanted to provide for you even after her death, so I was reluctant to defy her wishes. I'm sorry, Little Bird. You should have never seen her like that."

Red, damp eyes looked at me desperately. "But she's so beautiful, Poppi. My mother was a beautiful lady who wasn't afraid to share her beauty with the world. Look at this picture." She came over to sit on my lap and pulled up a black and white picture of her mother Morgan. Morgan was nude, her arms were poised gracefully above her, her palms resting gently on her head, her lustrous hair trailing down in a vain attempt to cover her full, round breasts, her nipples poking out sweetly above her thin waist and rock hard stomach. "Why shouldn't I be like her? Don't you think I'm beautiful, Poppi?"

Tears streaming down my cheeks threatened to betray me, but I steeled myself. "Of course, Emily, I think you're beautiful, every bit as beautiful as your mother was. That's not the point:you're not her."

A fresh spasm of sobbing lost a couple of minutes. She shrieked: "I know I'm not her, I'm constantly reminded that I'm not her and I'll never be the woman she was. I'm a failure, I'm hopeless. You never really loved my mother and I'm not as good as she was."

I took her face in my hands and tried to bore through the self-pity: "Emily, I've loved you from the day you were born and I'd do anything for you, anything! You don't have to earn my love, Little Bird, I'm proud of you. Your mother would have never wanted you to try to be like her; she would have wanted you to be the best Emily you could be. She wouldn't have cared if you couldn't be the athlete she was. You went to university at the age of 15 to major in English Literature and Creative Writing: she would have hired a press agent to spread that news. God help you, you inherited a bit of me beside my hair, and that would have made her happy."

The flood subsided and she looked a bit confused, her face wrinkled and her almond eyes dazed. After a moment, I felt strong enough to continue: "I can't say that Morgan was a great love of my life, but I loved her. She was a precocious tomboy as a little girl, a manic whirlwind as a teenager, an aggressive entrepreneur as a young woman, and left us when she was still in her prime. I couldn't love her as she deserved, but she found it hard to let anyone love her. You don't have to make that mistake, she wouldn't want you to make that mistake just because she did."

She collected herself and protested. "But I can let someone love me. Stuart loves me, and I love him."

"Ah, yes. I can see that by the red marks around your wrists and the bruises you've almost covered up on your face and neck."

"He says its no better than I deserve. He says he's the only one that really cares for me.'

"I'm sorry, Little Bird, but I have some bad news." I pulled up Stuart's blog, full of preening, ego-driven attitudes, proudly boasting of his conquests of Emily and three other young women. Then came the sites for the other women, the lurid poses he clearly forced them into, the clips of degradation beyond what Emily had endured. Emily's face grew cold as she looked at page after page, then she shut down the browser and rested her head on my shoulder.

"What do we do now, Poppi?" she whispered. " I'm scared of him."

I hugged her a moment. "You stay here for now. Go upstairs and take a long, hot bath while I take a nap. I'll call Edgar and we'll deal with Stuart tonight." She hugged me back hard until I thought I would burst. I kissed her on the cheek. "I'll protect you, Emily. It will be all right. You're safe, Little Bird."

14.5.2025

It was a windy May afternoon in the park, and I wore an Irish wool sweater under my windbreaker. A flock of twelve and thirteen year old girls were going through their hitting and fielding drills; the softballs taking on a green sheen as they bounced off the freshly cut grass. Large, murky black clouds crowded the sky, but gave no indication that they were about to unleash their heaviness to curtail the game. I looked around the stands at parents old enough to be my grandchildren; they had tolerated my presence gladly the past three weeks. Three of them were children of my students from University days, and I regaled them with stories of their parents' misadventures readily. The storytelling was a great service to the girls: my distraction of their parents kept them from yelling encouragement and frustration at their children with every practice grounder, swing or throw.

The team broke into two sides, and I settled into my customary role as scorekeeper. The manager gave me the lineups, which I recorded on the scoresheet in order to detail how every girl performed. It took me back to the childhood days of scoring Mickey and Maris, Yogi, Whitey, Elston and the rest of my beloved Yankees. Those were great summer days, laying flat on the floor by the radio or the TV with pencil and paper, sweltering while my heros worked their diamond magic. Later on, my Charlene and I spent many happy hours entwined on her couch watching the Cubs on cable, scoring them through good times and bad, mostly bad.

My Emily was a tall, pale, gangly kid in her t-shirt, long shorts, tube socks and baseball shoes, her training bra was just beginning to train and her long, black hair was wound up on her head under her hat. Given her family's medical history, it always worried me when she went out on the field, the dance studio or the gymnasium, and I had her checked by her pediatrician twice a year to be sure she was all right. I shot her a wink as she glanced my direction; she returned a brief smile before turning to cheer on her teammates from the bench.

As the innings progressed, I had to make my writing smaller and smaller to accommodate the long innings that averaged ten runs each. Emily started in left field, pitched for one inning, then played third base, all positions Morgan had played. My daughter was one of the greatest hustlers the diamond ever saw, diving for flies and grounders, sprinting into perfect position for every play, swinging from her heels at bat. I loved seeing her love for the game made manifest.

Unfortunately, she wasn't even mediocre for all her hustle, she managed only two foul balls in four strikeouts, her dives for the ball almost always came up empty, she was off target with all of her throws, and she was shellacked on the mound. The game ended at last, and I didn't need to listen as the manager read off the list of girls who made the team.