Jonathan Evison - This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

That rat had a name, Harriet, it was Mr. Obidiah Whiskers. And when you crushed Obidiah Whiskers, with one cast-iron stroke, you crushed Caroline, too. Yes, that sounds silly — it did then, and it still does. I mean, c’mon, it was a rat! You even offered to buy her a new one. And while nobody expected you to shed a tear for the unfortunate Mr. Whiskers, you might have showed a little more compassion than “It’s only a rat, Caroline.”

She was just a kid, Harriet. Worse, a teenager. A little empathy might have been nice. An apology of some sort. Just sayin’.

And let’s talk about the mutt, while we’re at it, the one Caroline brought home on her sixteenth birthday, the little brown one missing half an ear, and the ferocious breath, and the cataract clouding its right eye. That was Boogaloo, in case you’ve forgotten, and Caroline was obviously smitten beyond hope with the pathetic creature. The fact is, she could have used a companion about then. Better than the delinquents she was running around with.

But you wouldn’t give in, would you, Harriet? You wouldn’t even let her ask her father before you made her drop off the dog at the humane society. Was it really the new wood floors? Was it really your allergies? Was it really fair to speak on Bernard’s behalf?

You didn’t want your daughter to have a dog.

Gads, Harriet, even your mother let you have a dog! So why would you deny your daughter a dog? She would have made any concession to keep that dog. She promised to pay for its upkeep. The miserable thing might have happily slept in the garage. Probably Caroline would’ve slept in the garage with it.

Admit it, you were just being cheap with your daughter. It was a learned behavior, not that that’s an any kind of excuse.

Rats, dogs, foundling children, there’s a pattern here, Harriet, though it’s taken you nearly a half century to acknowledge it. Maybe your daughter’s not perfect, maybe she can’t tell her own story the way she’d like to. Maybe something is stopping her.

For nineteen years you’ve been looking at your daughter’s horsey features and wiry hair, and biting your tongue, thinking of Charlie Fitzsimmons and wondering if Bernard has ever intuited the fact that he’s raising somebody else’s daughter. But when you pick her up at the bus station upon her return from New Mexico, having wired her the money for the ticket three days prior (unbeknownst to Bernard), it’s not Charlie Fitzsimmons you see in your daughter’s bewildered young face, but yourself, Harriet.

Immediately you notice a change about her. Her eyes reflect experiences you do not recognize, and some that you do. You will not judge her, not this time. How could you? You don’t say a word about the tattoo on the ride to the clinic. You don’t ask about the job she held for six months in Albuquerque, or the winds that blew her there in the first place. You’re hardly listening, as she tells you about her stints in Santa Maria or Tucson. You don’t so much as inquire about the father of her unborn child or whether this is the first time such a thing has happened. There are many things you do not want to know.

What’s important, here, is that this thing go no further. This thing stops right here, and Caroline goes on with her life. Because there is a choice, a simple choice, one you never had. The fact is, you’re trying to save your daughter. You won’t even allow her to discuss or consider the other options, not if she wants to live under your roof. And really, where else can she go, Harriet, that she hasn’t already been in the past year? A shelter? Back on the street?

Make no mistake: your intentions are good. So don’t judge yourself too harshly.

Everything will turn out right, you tell your daughter. Just be grateful there’s a solution, dear. Consider yourself lucky you have a choice. You can put this behind you. You can still live the life you want to live. And don’t worry, your father doesn’t have to know a thing, dear. This is just between us.

This pact between you is the last secret you and Caroline will share for twenty-nine years, during which time both of you will withhold some doozies.

The Caroline who greets you in the waiting room a few hours after the procedure looks five years younger than the one that went in. Yes, much too young to be a mother, you think. Look what she’s saved herself from. Look at the opportunities still available to her without a child weighing her down. You made the right decision, Harriet, whether or not it was yours to make.

On the drive home from the clinic, Caroline cries softly in the passenger’s seat, face turned to the side window. You do your best to comfort her. You reassure her. You resist the temptation to lecture her on the subject of birth control, an option you never exercised yourself. You do not, however, solicit discussion or invite second-guessing where the matter of choice is concerned. Pulling the sleeve of Caroline’s blouse down over her tattoo, you pat her encouragingly on the knee.

There, there, you say, don’t cry. A fresh start, dear. You’ll see.

But that fresh start will look more like a spiral, won’t it, Harriet? Things will only get worse for Caroline. In six months, she’ll be out on the street again, looking for a family.

You see, Harriet, something else died along with that unborn child: an opportunity. What your daughter never told you, Harriet, what you wouldn’t have heard, anyway, is that she wanted to keep it.

Caroline stops just short of the bar and, donning a curdled grin, reaches into her pocket.

“Good,” she says. “I’m glad you’re back, Mom.”

She pulls out the check and rips it in half, then tears it in half again, and watches the pieces flutter to the floor, before resuming her stool next to Kurt.

“And just so you know, Mom, just so there’s no misunderstanding, it’s Skip, okay? He wants your money, not me. I’m just his stooge.”

Stunned, Harriet reaches out and grasps the bar for support.

“That’s right, Mom. Golden boy Skipper, your little man, he’s losing his house. And you’re the solution to all his problems. Me, I just get a free vacation and some new duds.”

“Well, how did he afford to send you money?”

“He forged a check. Yep, one of yours. Turns out I’m not the only criminal you raised.”

“Where did he get my checkbook?”

“From me, of course.”

Harriet stands there, dumb as a side of beef. But before the repercussions can settle in, before she can react to this news, she reminds herself why she’s here and shakes off the blow.

“Caroline, honey, you don’t want to do this. C’mon, dear, come with me. Let’s get some air and straighten all this out.”

Just as she says it, the barkeep delivers Caroline a fresh drink, which she clutches immediately.

Harriet shoots Kurt a withering look.

Kurt shrugs helplessly.

“Oh, give him a break, Mom. You’re the one trying to set me up with him.” Caroline slugs down half the drink in a single toss.

“Maybe she’s right,” says Kurt. “Maybe y’all ought to have that talk, Caroline.”

Caroline slams the highball glass down with gusto. “Fine,” she says, pushing off of the bar, her stool tipping backward, as she stands. “Let’s have a little talk.”

Behind her, Kurt pantomimes an elaborate apology. How could he know?

Harriet leads Caroline out by the elbow, though halfway down the corridor Caroline wrests her elbow free and steps up her pace, arriving at the elevator well in advance of Harriet, where she pushes the call button and shifts her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. Harriet knows better than to breach the silence at this point. Having been there herself so many times, she knows that any appeal to Caroline whatsoever at this moment, anything besides a strict observance of silence over the next minute or two, will only result in escalation.