by Zakes Mda
“If you thought you was buying us with those eggs you can take them back.”
“They ain’t mine to take back,” says Genesis. “But the boy is mine. And the grandson is mine too. God willed it so. You ain’t gonna battle with God.”
“But I can battle with you, Genesis. I warn you. Go to your silly lawyers and take back the case. We gonna deal with this as family.”
Genesis shakes his head and walks away.
“I’m warning you, Genesis,” Nana Moira yells after him.
A week later a sheriff’s deputy serves Nana Moira with summons and complaint. The plaintiff is Jason de Klerk and the defendant is Rachel Boucher. Rachel is away singing with Rain at some county fair in West Virginia, so Nana Moira signs for them. In the evening after feeding Blue, reading him a story and then tucking him in, she examines the documents.
Jason is requesting the Athens County Court of Common Pleas to grant him “reasonable companionship and visitation rights with the child currently named Blue Boucher”. The complaint states that the child is born of an unmarried mother, Rachel Boucher, and the father, Jason de Klerk, has acknowledged the child and that acknowledgement has become final pursuant to some sections of the Revised Code that are listed in the document. Nana Moira wonders what those sections entail.
When Rachel returns she sits on the deck and painstakingly reads the complaint and summons. Nana Moira expects a good measure of hysterics or at least a breakdown into a convulsion of tears. Instead, Rachel smiles and says, “I’m gonna write a song about this.”
“You need more than a song,” says Nana Moira. “The deputy said if you just sit on this they’re gonna get what he calls default judgment. That means Jason’s gonna get visitation.”
Rachel takes a long look at Nana Moira standing below the deck.
“Whose side are you on, Nana Moira? You been saying I should let Blue visit Genesis.”
“’Twas before they went to the law,” says Nana Moira. “And I didn’t say Blue should visit ’cause I was on their side. I said it ’cause I’m on Blue’s side and he needs a papa.”
There is a beep from Rachel’s phone. It is a text message from Skye Riley. She reads it, shakes her head and ignores it. She has been getting a number of these messages lately, Skye begging her to give him a second chance. She only responded to the first one with a curt: “Don’t you ever come to my house again”. Twice or thrice a day a message comes in and she ignores it. When she performed with Rain at the county fair Rachel asked her to tell her brother to stop pestering her.
“Come on, dude, give my bro a chance,” said Rain.
“He had a chance and he played with it,” said Rachel.
“Damn! You’re a tough one. I’ll tell him.”
Perhaps Rain told him, perhaps not. He continues to bombard her with text messages. She will have to change her number.
“We must see a lawyer,” says Nana Moira. “We can’t do this on our own.”
“The only lawyer I know is Mr Troy. Schuyler worked for him.”
“These papers are from your Mr Troy. We need to find a different one.”
The next day Nana Moira checks the yellow pages at the Centre and calls a lawyer who advertises herself as an expert in divorce and custody matters.
Rachel and Nana Moira leave Blue with the women of the Quilting Circle and drive to town to meet the lawyer, Jessica Urbaniak Esq., at her office in West Washington Street. She looks more like someone’s grandmother than the lawyer who will get Jason off their back. She sits behind a cluttered desk and shuts her eyes as Rachel tells her story. She is not dozing off, though. This is her way of paying attention. Occasionally she ambushes Rachel or Nana Moira with a question that sounds hostile. She tells them she is not about to use kid gloves on them because the plaintiff’s lawyer will not nurse their fragile feelings.
“Why did you decide to keep the rapist’s baby?” she asks, now looking directly into Rachel’s eyes.
“The same thing I asked when I heard she got herself knocked up. No point in asking it now. Blue is here and is a cute baby.”
Urbaniak looks sternly at Nana Moira. “Did I ask you?”
She then turns to Rachel and demands an answer. Urbaniak says Jason’s lawyers are bound to pose that question because women who raise their rape-conceived children depart from the norm. Raped women either abort or give up the rapist’s child for adoption because the child is a constant reminder.
“Why didn’t you opt for abortion?”
“I tried; I couldn’t,” says Rachel. “I was scared, maybe. I don’t know.”
Nana Moira is surprised how unflinching Rachel is, how she is staring back at the lawyer defiantly.
“I’m not raising a rapist’s child,” adds Rachel emphatically. “Blue is my child and I’m not a rapist. Blue lived in my body, not Jason’s.”
Urbaniak is so impressed with this answer she smiles for the first time since welcoming them into her office.
“I don’t see Jason when I look at my baby. I see only Blue. My beautiful Blue. Me and Blue both are Jason’s victims. That’s how I see it.”
The lawyer nods.
“That makes a lot of sense to me,” she says. “I don’t know if it will make similar sense to the judge or to the magistrate who may be assigned the case.”
Nana Moira is proud of her granddaughter. This is not the Rachel she knows.
“What I wanna know is how come the law allows Jason to fight for the kid when he is a rapist?” asks Nana Moira.
“I think what you’re asking is: are rapists allowed paternity rights over rape-conceived children? Yes, they are,” the lawyer says.
Urbaniak explains that under Ohio law a man who fathers a child through rape has the same parenting rights and responsibilities as any other father, and that includes custody and visitation.
After taking their statements the lawyer tells them what her fee will be. They are both shocked.
“Legal services don’t come cheap,” she says. “Actually I’m the cheapest lawyer – I mean the least expensive – in town.”
Rachel says they will pay. They have no choice because they have to fight for Blue. She has saved some money from the last gig with Rain. She will collect more as she busks on Wednesdays and Saturdays. And maybe Rain will come up with another good-paying gig again. It is the season for county fairs and festivals.
“You’re a brave woman,” says Jessica Urbaniak Esq. as she shakes Rachel’s hand at the door. “We’re going to fight this case.”
9
Rain sings with Rachel at the Athens County Fair. What is significant about this event is that Rachel is the headliner – the committee invited Rachel and she invited Rain to join her. The two beautiful women are spreading plenty of laughter on the bleachers. They have billed themselves R-n-R.
Rachel is playing the guitar and singing a ballad of her own composition in her nasally soprano:
We live in the back of nowhere
At night a train going somewhere
Airborne blast of the air horn
Grinding wheels on iron worn
But ain’t no railroad in Jensen no ways
Not since ol’ boom-time coal mining days
Yet the train continues chugga chugga wooo
Haunting ol’ Jensen rumble rumble boooo
Rain is playing a tambourine and backing her in her rich alto: Chugga chugga woooo, rumble rumble rumble boooo…
And then she joins the dialogue:
A graveyard is the place loved by Rain
You ain’t gonna be haunted by no train
Dead folk is quiet folk, I tell you again
They’re better company than most people I know
The women are prancing about on the makeshift stage when Rachel sees something that startles her. Someone who very much looks like Jason is sitting on the bleachers. It can’t be him, though. He is in a black suit, a white shirt and a black tie, and is sporting a beard. She manages to control herself, and continues with
the performance.
After three songs R-n-R vacate the stage for the next act. Rachel scans the bleachers but there is no Jason. Now she is really pissed with herself. She believed that the years of counselling had exorcised Jason from her life. Obviously, they have not.
The two women look for something to eat. Rachel gets a corn dog while Rain settles for a hot dog with lots of ketchup and mustard. It drips all over her hands as she and Rachel stroll among displays of award-winning pumpkins and enclosures of prize hogs. Rachel wants to go for the amusement rides but the line of shrieking children is too long. They walk past brawny demolition derby drivers. Rachel kids Rain that none of the hunks will hit on them because Rain is messy and disgusting.
They head to the horse arena and watch the 4-H barrel racing. Genesis’ wife rides a shimmering palomino cutting the clover-leaf pattern among yellow barrels. And there is Genesis cheering his wife on. Rachel remembers that barrel racing has always been one of the passions of the De Klerk family. Her eyes fall on Jason sitting some tiers above his father on the grandstand looking ridiculous in his dark suit and sunglasses, and being nonchalant about the race and the cheering crowd around him.
Her eyes are playing tricks on her again.
She tells Rain she wants to go home. Blue is the excuse. She wants to release Nana Moira from the burden of looking after him. Rain wants to take a look at some main stage performers for a while and the demolition derby afterwards. She will drive back home to West Virginia later in the evening. Rachel casts her eyes on the grandstand again, but she can’t find Jason.
Back at the double-wide Rachel says nothing to Nana Moira about being haunted by visions of Jason. Instead she takes Blue to the woods and sets up a small picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and soda. She plays the guitar and sings until dusk sends them home.
Nana Moira tells Rachel about a phone call she received from Jessica Urbaniak. She needs to see her soon because there are new developments in the case. She has another case in Hocking County tomorrow, so she’d like to see Rachel first thing in the morning the following day.
“What new tricks up Genesis’ sleeve?” Nana Moira asks of no one in particular.
“It doesn’t matter what tricks, Nana Moira. We are going to fight them,” says Rachel.
Nana Moira is encouraged by her confidence.
The next day she drives to Rome Township to try once more to talk Genesis out of this silliness. She finds him hand-tilling the garden with a spade.
“We gotta talk, Genesis,” says Nana Moira.
He does not stop working. He is digging a trench, depositing shovels full of soil near the ditch, then digging a second ditch next to the first, and moving the soil into the first.
“This is what we call double-digging, Nana Moira,” says Genesis. “Best for vegetables.”
“I don’t wanna talk about no vegetables, Genesis. This is serious.”
“Go ahead, Nana Moira.”
“Stop this silliness of a court case right now. We’re like family. We don’t wanna hang our dirty clothes out there in Athens.”
Genesis stops digging and gives her a pitying look.
“Your granddaughter ain’t fit to be a mother. People seen her getting drunk and stoned all over the city,” says Genesis.
Now this is something new. Nana Moira doesn’t know what it has to do with Jason’s visitation rights.
“That was years ago,” says Nana Moira. “Before Blue was even born.”
“So, you see? She was pregnant with my grandson and was getting drunk and stoned all over town.”
“It was the trauma,” says Nana Moira frantically. “No ways was that in her nature. She was sick with PTSD, that’s what they call it.”
Genesis laughs mockingly, and resumes digging.
“Now I heard everything. PTSD! She wasn’t in no Vietnam or nowhere near any war. PTSD!”
“I don’t know nothing about it myself, but that’s what the counsellor said. And it was all Jason’s fault.”
Genesis glares at her as if he is going to attack her with the spade. Nana Moira has never seen him like this before. She moves back a little.
“Hi, Nana Moira,” a voice calls from behind her. It is Jason donned in a black suit and looking like the elders of Genesis’ church.
“Jason, you’re back?” says Nana Moira.
“He was bound to come back sometime,” says Genesis.
“I’ve come back to spread the Word, Nana Moira. How’s everybody at the Centre?”
His chirpiness unsettles Nana Moira. He missed everyone, he says. He hopes they looked after his compost. Nana Moira stands there dumbfounded. She has no heart to tell him that no one cared for his compost. It just sat there with the rain and the snow and the sun and the wind doing their business on it as seasons changed, until it became part of the backyard lawn.
Nana Moira gets into her GMC Suburban and drives back to Jensen Township like a mad woman. She forgets all about her arthritis and almost trips at the door as she flies in dragging the walking stick. Rachel and Blue are watching cartoons on television.
“He’s back! Jason is back!” says Nana Moira, almost out of breath.
“Really? You saw him?”
“I went to Genesis’ place and spoke with Jason.”
Rachel jumps up with joy.
“That’s great,” she says.
“Great?”
“Don’t you see? It means I’m not crazy. It means I haven’t relapsed.”
Nana Moira does not understand what she is talking about. She suddenly has a headache. She says she has to lie down, otherwise she will end up being mental like everyone else.
Jessica Urbaniak announces that Jason has upped the stakes. He is no longer fighting for visitation rights but for sole custody. Or, as an alternative relief, joint custody. He has withdrawn his visitation complaint and has filed a motion for custody with the clerk of the court. This is now a different ball game altogether.
This takes time to sink into Rachel’s head. She stares blankly at Urbaniak standing in front of her overloaded antique desk and waving the court process. She sinks deeper into the plush love seat she is sharing with Nana Moira. She didn’t want her grandma to be here. But Nana Moira insisted on coming with her. She said she wanted to hear with her own ears what evil the De Klerk family was planning against the Bouchers. Ever since Nana Moira discovered Jason was back she has been hovering over Rachel all the time like a mother hen. Rachel finds it suffocating. She resents Nana Moira taking over this battle as her own.
“He wanna take Blue from us? How’s that even possible?” asks Nana Moira.
“Like I said the other day, a man who fathers a child through rape has the same rights as any father in Ohio. There are no laws that terminate such rights. If we lived in Michigan or Wisconsin we wouldn’t even be here. In those states, and fourteen others, there are laws that automatically terminate rapists’ parenting rights.”
She outlines Jason’s case against Rachel. He says the interests of the child will be better served with him as the custodial parent. He has the means to primarily care for the child; he is a partner in his father’s thriving cheese-ageing business and a lay preacher of the Reformed Church in America.
“He lies,” says Nana Moira. “He told me he hates all that stinky cheese.”
Urbaniak continues reading from Jason’s motion. Jason states that he is also a musician of note who creates innovative sounds playing exotic instruments. He maintains a stable home that he shares with his father and stepmother, a property to which he will be sole heir.
On the other hand Rachel, his motion continues, is not a fit and proper mother. She is not mentally stable and has been undergoing treatment at the Tri-County Mental Health Services. She is also known to abuse alcohol and drugs, habits that will affect the child adversely.
“So, that’s what this is all about?” says Nana Moira. “Genesis mentioned this to me.”
“You spoke with him about it?” asks Urbaniak
.
“I went to his house to talk him out of this silly case.”
“Don’t do that again,” says Urbaniak. “You’re not helping Rachel’s case when you do that. Stay away from those people until this matter has been resolved.”
“I told you about your drinking, Rachel,” says Nana Moira. “See, now it’s coming back to bite your ass.”
“So it’s true then that you drink too much and abuse drugs as they claim?”
“That was almost four years ago. I stopped all that.”
“And someone can vouch for you that you stopped many years ago?”
“The counsellors at Tri-County,” says Rachel.
Urbaniak returns to the custody motion and tells the women that as the primary custodial parent Jason wants to make sole decisions, or joint decision if granted alternative relief, about the child’s education, religious upbringing and general welfare.
The hearing date has been set and the case will be before the magistrate and not before Judge Stonebrook. Rachel is relieved to hear this because the judge got Jason off with a light sentence.
The women trudge to the city garage where Nana Moira has parked her vehicle. Not a word passes between them.
“I got work to do,” says Nana Moira as she drives on Route 50. And that’s the only thing she says until she drops Rachel at home.
“I got work to do too,” says Rachel as she gets out of the car. Nana Moira drives on to the Centre.
Whereas Nana Moira finds relief from the tensions of the day by bringing relief to others, Rachel thinks she will find it by rejoining her old friends of Appalachia Active. She does not want to be alone at this point, just she and her music. Otherwise she will relapse, which she fears more than anything else. It’s been a long road getting where she is. She will not allow Jason to take her back to a state of anxiety again. She needs the company of people who are working for something good. She calls a member of Appalachia Active, who invites her to a meeting that very afternoon.
She gets into her car and drives to Stewart where the meeting will be held. Rachel doesn’t leave a note for her grandmother because she believes she will return home before Nana Moira.