Home
By Maureen
Disclaimer: song by Sevendust, story by me. This is fourth in the Mama Catie series, the 3 previous stories are (in order) Angel's Son, Crumbled, & Small Town.
***
0-3 months
"He's beautiful," Catie whispered as she watched her baby, her baby, sleep in his bassinet at the hospital. Even though thick glass separated them, she was afraid she would wake him if she spoke too loudly.
"Yeah," Jamie replied, in a normal voice. He was under no maternal illusions about waking the child. However, he was of the firm belief that the delusions of mothers must be taken seriously or face painful repercussions. After all, if it weren't for maternal delusions many ugly babies and ill-tempered offspring would have been drowned. "He's so small."
"You wouldn't say that if you had been the one carrying him," Catie retorted, alluding to the first time out of bed since the birth of her child. She had screamed, unprepared for the image of her once near-perfect figure all but destroyed.
"Calien James," James mused. "I like it. Suits him."
"You'd better like it!" Catie told him, "Seeing as I've named him after you!"
"I don't like it," a third voice spoke up. The voice was obviously male but not the low rumble of Hank or Tyler's tenor. "He should be named for his father."
"Billy," Jamie spat, his good hand unconsciously clenching into a fist. "What are you doing here?"
Catie put a restraining hand on Jamie's arm, not expecting to physically stop him but to remind him where they were. "It is his child too, the birth certificate says so."
"Stay away from Catie." Jamie ordered.
"Or what Waite? I can't even see my son?" Billy asked coldly. He was flashing his 100-watt smile, but both Jamie and Catie were immune. It was a remarkable dichotomy, the voice as smooth as glass and about as warm with the super-star smile.
"Simple. I'll make you."
"You and what army? Hell, you couldn't beat me on a good day, much less one handed!"
Damn, Jamie thought, I certainly can't beat him with this blasted cast on. "Fine then, when it's off."
"Guys, watch testosterone levels!" Catie broke in, disrupting the macho repartee. "Jamie, like it or not, Billy is Calien's father. The agreement we've worked out is that Billy can spend weekends with Calien with a chaperone. Meaning his parents or me. Eventually, when Calien's old enough Billy will be able to baby-sit for him. And Billy has a job to help pay for things. And Billy!" Catie called to him, not forgetting him, "I live with Jamie. And I love him. This means he'll be around. You're going to have to deal with it. I don't love you and I never will. You are Calien's father, but Jamie is his dad. Got it both of you?"
Numbly both man-boys nodded. Billy couldn't believe she didn't love him and Jamie couldn't believe she did.
Wreckage - My mind
Insecure - All the time
Once loved - Now paralyzed
I once thought - I'll never die
Jamie walked next to Catie as she was wheeled to the car to go home a few days after Calien was born, the baby wrapped snug in a blue blanket with a white cap on his little head. "This isn't your moms car…" Catie said, confused at the silver four-door Honda civic waiting.
"It's mine. Do you like it?" Jamie told her. "I ah… I used the winnings from the dirt bike races and then sold my dirt bike for a down payment. I'm going to be paying it off forever, but I got it really cheap."
"I love it!" Catie gushed, kissing Jamie lightly on the cheek as he bent over to take the baby so she could get in the car.
***
"We never really figured out how this was going to work," Jamie remarked, looking around the already cluttered bedroom. "I'm not sure this room can handle us and Calien."
"I've taken care of that," Jamie's mother said. She was not very active in Jamie's life since she was working two jobs in an effort to support herself and her son, plus put Peter through college. She was more than happy to let Catie live with them, but had not been as motherly as she had wanted to be. "Well, sort of."
"Sort of?" Jamie replied dubiously. For now most of the baby stuff was against the living room wall and the bassinet was in his room.
"If you're willing to clean out the 'junk room', you can have a suite of sorts. And for your birthday I will pay one of your car payments."
Jamie and Catie had both forgotten. Jamie's birthday was in two weeks. "Done. Thanks," Jamie proclaimed, hugging his mother. "I'm going to call some friends to help!"
Melissa Waite walked away laughing softly, wondering where he got his energy. Ah well, she had to go to work.
"What does she mean, 'junk room'?" Catie asked.
"Well, my dad left us years ago and at first my mom couldn't accept it and kept all of his crap. She threw it all in the spare bedroom. Then other junk just started to accumulate. Before we knew it, there was so much crap in there, we just shut the door and hoped it didn't multiply while we weren't looking. We can clean it up, and it will take a week or more just to get rid of the crap, and use it."
"You've had a spare bedroom? I didn't have to share with you all this time!?" Catie shrieked.
Jamie nodded sheepishly. In all honesty, it hadn't even occurred to him to clean it out. "But just think of all the stuff we learned! I would never have known what a 'camisole' was or how to unhook a bra!"
"I'm not cleaning it, Mr. Waite. You are," Catie said calmly. She had enjoyed sharing with him. Immensely. Especially when he got her food in the middle of the night. And explaining under wire was a great moment too.
***
"We have to clean this?" Hank asked, not believing the mess in front of him.
"I think declaring it a federal disaster area would be a better idea," Val piped up from behind Hank.
Jamie had called the squad up to help. He knew his fellow bleacher junkies would never help with this and as much as he sometimes hated to admit it, the squad was his friend, preps or not. This was the first time they had been to his house. Catie sat in the desk chair with Calien, nursing him.
The spare room was directly across the small hallway from Jamie's and from his desk, she could see into the room. Well, if there were no bodies blocking the door that is.
"Come on, we'll trash as much as we can and sell the rest." Jamie begged, knowing that he'd never be able to do it alone.
"Sure," Tyler said, rolling his sleeves up, "but if there are animals in here, all bets are off." Tyler had studiously not looked at Catie at all since he had shown up. He had looked everywhere but her. He didn't want to admit it, but watching her nurse Calien unnerved him.
Frustrated - Our simple life
No one listens - Everyone lies
Who said "Home is where you hide"?
Strong as shit now you see
Two days later they had most of the room emptied. They had filled five garbage bags with trash and another six with smaller things to be sold at a garage sale. Tyler and Val had even left to go borrow Val's fathers' pickup truck to haul everything away.
"It's not done yet?" Jamie asked weakly. He was sitting in the hallway, his back to the wall. He had no idea it was this bad. "Catie? How important is this?"
Catie ignored him and dragged another trash bag out to be loaded on the truck. As long as someone watched Calien, she was helping. He was so small that he slept most of the time and only woke to be fed or changed. "Check his diaper."
"Phew…yucky stinky diaper!" Jamie exclaimed, "what have you been eating kid?" sighing, he somehow managed to pull himself off the floor to change the baby's diaper. Hank took his place on the floor.
Jamie changed him and then deposited the now-awake child in Hank's arms. "You hold him while I clean," He instructed.
Hank looked down and the child, carefully supporting his head. So small. So perfect.
I'm home - leave it to me
(leave it to me)
From left to right...
From left to right...
It took the entire weekend to simply empty the room. "You owe us big time man," Tyler told him as they left Sunday night. Jamie nodded and planned to order pizza for them next shift. Amazing what pizza could do. Forget cheese, behold the power of pizza.
Jamie and Catie stood in the open door, wondering what next. "Musty. We should air it out."
"Clean it, buster," Catie told him. "It needs to be aired and cleaned."
"Yes, ma'am," Jamie mumbled, heading to the kitchen for cleaning supplies. Their home. Sure, it was only two rooms and a bathroom, but it was their palace. Scrubbing would be hellish.
I tried - my Father said,
I'm scared - she always said
They grab and pull until I tear
"No! You have to support his head!" Catie told Billy, rescuing her son from his clumsy arms. "Haven't you ever held a baby before?"
"No…" Billy mumbled. They were sitting in the Waite's backyard with Mrs. Major's. Jamie was inside seething about Billy being over and moving the last of the baby furniture into the new 'baby's room'. They hadn't decorated it, but it was clean, aired and smelled like pine and baby powder. What more did it need?
"Like this!" Catie ordered, depositing Calien in his grandmother's arms. "Hold your arms like….no, that's too stiff, relax! He won't bite, he doesn't have teeth yet, so even if he tried it won't matter!"
"I hate the name, Calien." Billy told her sullenly.
"Tough. Here," Catie took her son back and gently placed the infant in his father's arms. After tensing at first, Billy began to relax. "See? Not hard at all!"
"He's so small."
"Don't worry, he'll grow, very quickly." His stepmother told him, a small smile playing on her features. As much as she disliked what her stepson had done, having a child before he finished high school, it was nice to be a grandmother and spoil the baby rotten. Less than a week old and already she was plotting how to spoil him. But that's what babies and grandmothers are for, right?
Without warning, Calien scrunched up his face and began to wail. Billy jumped backwards as if slapped, fortunately he did not drop the baby. "Oh, Calien, it's just your nitwit father! Calm down, precious…" Catie reclaimed the infant and unhooked her bra to feed him. "You're just hungry, huh?"
The screaming infant immediately quieted, suckling happily.
"Shouldn't you go inside or something?" Billy asked, unsure what to do. She was breast-feeding in front of him!
"Why? You've seen my breasts before and I'm just feeding him. I'm not doing anything wrong."
"But, but…" Billy began to flush, his smooth talking act flying out the window.
"She has you there," his stepmother chided him. Let him squirm a little.
Meaning - Too deep to swim
When's a good time for the end?
Who said I was your Friend?
"Have you begun to look at daycares yet?" Mrs. Majors asked Catie, once they were alone. "Summer is short."
Catie sighed, "Yeah, I know. I don't want to put him in a daycare though, he'll still be so small, fragile. And daycare…they say that kids in daycare end up more violent."
"You know we're paying for it?"
"Yeah, and it's not that I'm ungrateful, I just want the best for him. Jamie only works three days a week, but he works 24 hours at a time! And we'll both have school and I'm getting a job soon…and no offense, but I don't trust Billy alone with Calien, not yet at least." Catie blurted out many of her fears quickly, unsure how her 'mother-in-law' would react. They were close, but still the invisible boundary of 'unwed-teenage-mother and teenage-fathers-stepmother'.
"It's hard," the older woman agreed. "But you're doing a good job. You are a good mother."
Catie didn't look her in the eye, not sure if she should believe her or not. True, she had never lied to Catie and had been more than generous helping her…but why wouldn't her parents come see their grandchild then?
I'm home - -Leave it to me
(leave it to me now that you've seen)
I'm home - leave it to me
(leave it to me)
Calien's muffled shrieks pierced Jamie's dream about being the sultan of a harem of gorgeous women. For some reason, the women were shrieking. Then they began to poke him. Wait, women did not shriek or poke in his dreams. Worship, yes, but never poke. Poking was for…Catie. The baby. Damn.
"I got it," He mumbled, although in his sleep-laden state it came out more like 'Ih ga et.'
Working on autopilot, Jamie quickly began to rock Calien, he wasn't quite comfortable calling him 'son', and heated up a bottle. He could not wait for the day Calien began to sleep through the night. Hopefully, it would be before school stated up again. "Shh, shh, calm down, I'll feed you in a second." He deftly guided the tip of the bottle into the screaming mouth, nearly instant quiet other than small sucking noises. "See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?"
From left to right...
From left to right...
Suffocated - our simple life
No one listens - everyone dies
Never a chance - how could you see?
Jamie gently laid Calien in his crib, making sure he was once again fast asleep before returning to his room. Catie was sitting up in her bed, eyes wide awake despite the early hour, her hair resembling medusa. "I've been thinking," She began.
'I've been thinking' is always a bad way to begin any discussion in Jamie's experience. He carefully sat on his bed, waiting for her to continue.
"We would have more room in here if we pushed the beds together." Catie said, unaware of the turmoil her first sentence caused.
Jamie exhaled, releasing the breath he wasn't aware he had been holding. Only the beds. He could deal with that even sleepy. "Okay," he agreed, "but we'll do it in the morning."
"Night, Jamie, love you," Catie said, laying back in bed.
"Night Catie, love you too," he mumbled, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Catie laid in bed, unable to sleep, finally, she climbed into Jamie's bed, spooning against him. He never woke up, simply wrapped his arm around her, holding her close.
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me)
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me now that you've seen)
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me)
I'm home - leave it to me (what the fuck did you say?)
By Maureen
Disclaimer: song by Sevendust, story by me. This is fourth in the Mama Catie series, the 3 previous stories are (in order) Angel's Son, Crumbled, & Small Town.
***
0-3 months
"He's beautiful," Catie whispered as she watched her baby, her baby, sleep in his bassinet at the hospital. Even though thick glass separated them, she was afraid she would wake him if she spoke too loudly.
"Yeah," Jamie replied, in a normal voice. He was under no maternal illusions about waking the child. However, he was of the firm belief that the delusions of mothers must be taken seriously or face painful repercussions. After all, if it weren't for maternal delusions many ugly babies and ill-tempered offspring would have been drowned. "He's so small."
"You wouldn't say that if you had been the one carrying him," Catie retorted, alluding to the first time out of bed since the birth of her child. She had screamed, unprepared for the image of her once near-perfect figure all but destroyed.
"Calien James," James mused. "I like it. Suits him."
"You'd better like it!" Catie told him, "Seeing as I've named him after you!"
"I don't like it," a third voice spoke up. The voice was obviously male but not the low rumble of Hank or Tyler's tenor. "He should be named for his father."
"Billy," Jamie spat, his good hand unconsciously clenching into a fist. "What are you doing here?"
Catie put a restraining hand on Jamie's arm, not expecting to physically stop him but to remind him where they were. "It is his child too, the birth certificate says so."
"Stay away from Catie." Jamie ordered.
"Or what Waite? I can't even see my son?" Billy asked coldly. He was flashing his 100-watt smile, but both Jamie and Catie were immune. It was a remarkable dichotomy, the voice as smooth as glass and about as warm with the super-star smile.
"Simple. I'll make you."
"You and what army? Hell, you couldn't beat me on a good day, much less one handed!"
Damn, Jamie thought, I certainly can't beat him with this blasted cast on. "Fine then, when it's off."
"Guys, watch testosterone levels!" Catie broke in, disrupting the macho repartee. "Jamie, like it or not, Billy is Calien's father. The agreement we've worked out is that Billy can spend weekends with Calien with a chaperone. Meaning his parents or me. Eventually, when Calien's old enough Billy will be able to baby-sit for him. And Billy has a job to help pay for things. And Billy!" Catie called to him, not forgetting him, "I live with Jamie. And I love him. This means he'll be around. You're going to have to deal with it. I don't love you and I never will. You are Calien's father, but Jamie is his dad. Got it both of you?"
Numbly both man-boys nodded. Billy couldn't believe she didn't love him and Jamie couldn't believe she did.
Wreckage - My mind
Insecure - All the time
Once loved - Now paralyzed
I once thought - I'll never die
Jamie walked next to Catie as she was wheeled to the car to go home a few days after Calien was born, the baby wrapped snug in a blue blanket with a white cap on his little head. "This isn't your moms car…" Catie said, confused at the silver four-door Honda civic waiting.
"It's mine. Do you like it?" Jamie told her. "I ah… I used the winnings from the dirt bike races and then sold my dirt bike for a down payment. I'm going to be paying it off forever, but I got it really cheap."
"I love it!" Catie gushed, kissing Jamie lightly on the cheek as he bent over to take the baby so she could get in the car.
***
"We never really figured out how this was going to work," Jamie remarked, looking around the already cluttered bedroom. "I'm not sure this room can handle us and Calien."
"I've taken care of that," Jamie's mother said. She was not very active in Jamie's life since she was working two jobs in an effort to support herself and her son, plus put Peter through college. She was more than happy to let Catie live with them, but had not been as motherly as she had wanted to be. "Well, sort of."
"Sort of?" Jamie replied dubiously. For now most of the baby stuff was against the living room wall and the bassinet was in his room.
"If you're willing to clean out the 'junk room', you can have a suite of sorts. And for your birthday I will pay one of your car payments."
Jamie and Catie had both forgotten. Jamie's birthday was in two weeks. "Done. Thanks," Jamie proclaimed, hugging his mother. "I'm going to call some friends to help!"
Melissa Waite walked away laughing softly, wondering where he got his energy. Ah well, she had to go to work.
"What does she mean, 'junk room'?" Catie asked.
"Well, my dad left us years ago and at first my mom couldn't accept it and kept all of his crap. She threw it all in the spare bedroom. Then other junk just started to accumulate. Before we knew it, there was so much crap in there, we just shut the door and hoped it didn't multiply while we weren't looking. We can clean it up, and it will take a week or more just to get rid of the crap, and use it."
"You've had a spare bedroom? I didn't have to share with you all this time!?" Catie shrieked.
Jamie nodded sheepishly. In all honesty, it hadn't even occurred to him to clean it out. "But just think of all the stuff we learned! I would never have known what a 'camisole' was or how to unhook a bra!"
"I'm not cleaning it, Mr. Waite. You are," Catie said calmly. She had enjoyed sharing with him. Immensely. Especially when he got her food in the middle of the night. And explaining under wire was a great moment too.
***
"We have to clean this?" Hank asked, not believing the mess in front of him.
"I think declaring it a federal disaster area would be a better idea," Val piped up from behind Hank.
Jamie had called the squad up to help. He knew his fellow bleacher junkies would never help with this and as much as he sometimes hated to admit it, the squad was his friend, preps or not. This was the first time they had been to his house. Catie sat in the desk chair with Calien, nursing him.
The spare room was directly across the small hallway from Jamie's and from his desk, she could see into the room. Well, if there were no bodies blocking the door that is.
"Come on, we'll trash as much as we can and sell the rest." Jamie begged, knowing that he'd never be able to do it alone.
"Sure," Tyler said, rolling his sleeves up, "but if there are animals in here, all bets are off." Tyler had studiously not looked at Catie at all since he had shown up. He had looked everywhere but her. He didn't want to admit it, but watching her nurse Calien unnerved him.
Frustrated - Our simple life
No one listens - Everyone lies
Who said "Home is where you hide"?
Strong as shit now you see
Two days later they had most of the room emptied. They had filled five garbage bags with trash and another six with smaller things to be sold at a garage sale. Tyler and Val had even left to go borrow Val's fathers' pickup truck to haul everything away.
"It's not done yet?" Jamie asked weakly. He was sitting in the hallway, his back to the wall. He had no idea it was this bad. "Catie? How important is this?"
Catie ignored him and dragged another trash bag out to be loaded on the truck. As long as someone watched Calien, she was helping. He was so small that he slept most of the time and only woke to be fed or changed. "Check his diaper."
"Phew…yucky stinky diaper!" Jamie exclaimed, "what have you been eating kid?" sighing, he somehow managed to pull himself off the floor to change the baby's diaper. Hank took his place on the floor.
Jamie changed him and then deposited the now-awake child in Hank's arms. "You hold him while I clean," He instructed.
Hank looked down and the child, carefully supporting his head. So small. So perfect.
I'm home - leave it to me
(leave it to me)
From left to right...
From left to right...
It took the entire weekend to simply empty the room. "You owe us big time man," Tyler told him as they left Sunday night. Jamie nodded and planned to order pizza for them next shift. Amazing what pizza could do. Forget cheese, behold the power of pizza.
Jamie and Catie stood in the open door, wondering what next. "Musty. We should air it out."
"Clean it, buster," Catie told him. "It needs to be aired and cleaned."
"Yes, ma'am," Jamie mumbled, heading to the kitchen for cleaning supplies. Their home. Sure, it was only two rooms and a bathroom, but it was their palace. Scrubbing would be hellish.
I tried - my Father said,
I'm scared - she always said
They grab and pull until I tear
"No! You have to support his head!" Catie told Billy, rescuing her son from his clumsy arms. "Haven't you ever held a baby before?"
"No…" Billy mumbled. They were sitting in the Waite's backyard with Mrs. Major's. Jamie was inside seething about Billy being over and moving the last of the baby furniture into the new 'baby's room'. They hadn't decorated it, but it was clean, aired and smelled like pine and baby powder. What more did it need?
"Like this!" Catie ordered, depositing Calien in his grandmother's arms. "Hold your arms like….no, that's too stiff, relax! He won't bite, he doesn't have teeth yet, so even if he tried it won't matter!"
"I hate the name, Calien." Billy told her sullenly.
"Tough. Here," Catie took her son back and gently placed the infant in his father's arms. After tensing at first, Billy began to relax. "See? Not hard at all!"
"He's so small."
"Don't worry, he'll grow, very quickly." His stepmother told him, a small smile playing on her features. As much as she disliked what her stepson had done, having a child before he finished high school, it was nice to be a grandmother and spoil the baby rotten. Less than a week old and already she was plotting how to spoil him. But that's what babies and grandmothers are for, right?
Without warning, Calien scrunched up his face and began to wail. Billy jumped backwards as if slapped, fortunately he did not drop the baby. "Oh, Calien, it's just your nitwit father! Calm down, precious…" Catie reclaimed the infant and unhooked her bra to feed him. "You're just hungry, huh?"
The screaming infant immediately quieted, suckling happily.
"Shouldn't you go inside or something?" Billy asked, unsure what to do. She was breast-feeding in front of him!
"Why? You've seen my breasts before and I'm just feeding him. I'm not doing anything wrong."
"But, but…" Billy began to flush, his smooth talking act flying out the window.
"She has you there," his stepmother chided him. Let him squirm a little.
Meaning - Too deep to swim
When's a good time for the end?
Who said I was your Friend?
"Have you begun to look at daycares yet?" Mrs. Majors asked Catie, once they were alone. "Summer is short."
Catie sighed, "Yeah, I know. I don't want to put him in a daycare though, he'll still be so small, fragile. And daycare…they say that kids in daycare end up more violent."
"You know we're paying for it?"
"Yeah, and it's not that I'm ungrateful, I just want the best for him. Jamie only works three days a week, but he works 24 hours at a time! And we'll both have school and I'm getting a job soon…and no offense, but I don't trust Billy alone with Calien, not yet at least." Catie blurted out many of her fears quickly, unsure how her 'mother-in-law' would react. They were close, but still the invisible boundary of 'unwed-teenage-mother and teenage-fathers-stepmother'.
"It's hard," the older woman agreed. "But you're doing a good job. You are a good mother."
Catie didn't look her in the eye, not sure if she should believe her or not. True, she had never lied to Catie and had been more than generous helping her…but why wouldn't her parents come see their grandchild then?
I'm home - -Leave it to me
(leave it to me now that you've seen)
I'm home - leave it to me
(leave it to me)
Calien's muffled shrieks pierced Jamie's dream about being the sultan of a harem of gorgeous women. For some reason, the women were shrieking. Then they began to poke him. Wait, women did not shriek or poke in his dreams. Worship, yes, but never poke. Poking was for…Catie. The baby. Damn.
"I got it," He mumbled, although in his sleep-laden state it came out more like 'Ih ga et.'
Working on autopilot, Jamie quickly began to rock Calien, he wasn't quite comfortable calling him 'son', and heated up a bottle. He could not wait for the day Calien began to sleep through the night. Hopefully, it would be before school stated up again. "Shh, shh, calm down, I'll feed you in a second." He deftly guided the tip of the bottle into the screaming mouth, nearly instant quiet other than small sucking noises. "See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?"
From left to right...
From left to right...
Suffocated - our simple life
No one listens - everyone dies
Never a chance - how could you see?
Jamie gently laid Calien in his crib, making sure he was once again fast asleep before returning to his room. Catie was sitting up in her bed, eyes wide awake despite the early hour, her hair resembling medusa. "I've been thinking," She began.
'I've been thinking' is always a bad way to begin any discussion in Jamie's experience. He carefully sat on his bed, waiting for her to continue.
"We would have more room in here if we pushed the beds together." Catie said, unaware of the turmoil her first sentence caused.
Jamie exhaled, releasing the breath he wasn't aware he had been holding. Only the beds. He could deal with that even sleepy. "Okay," he agreed, "but we'll do it in the morning."
"Night, Jamie, love you," Catie said, laying back in bed.
"Night Catie, love you too," he mumbled, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Catie laid in bed, unable to sleep, finally, she climbed into Jamie's bed, spooning against him. He never woke up, simply wrapped his arm around her, holding her close.
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me)
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me now that you've seen)
I'm home - leave it to me (leave it to me)
I'm home - leave it to me (what the fuck did you say?)
