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"Is that a threat from a Superior Court Judge?"

"No. By a daughter who loves her mother, which is much worse."

~Charles Duff and Amy Gray "Judging Amy"

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Maxine's fingers were a blurred flurry of knitting needles. She was not making any type of real pattern, just creating row after row of worsted yarn the color of café blonde, the loops taking on the abuse of what Amy called her: "angry knitting." Tucked under a roll of hand dyed buttercream yarn was a nearly finished baby blanket. All that was left was to finish the trim in the color she was currently using.

She had been sitting on the porch that overlooked bushes of tea roses that wound around an ancient looking oak, halfway through completing the second side of the blanket when her cellphone, which had been a constant by her side in the past two weeks of Amy's pregnancy, rang. After that, it had been a mad rush of remembering Ignacio had their spare care parked in long term parking at the airport, and her own car had been towed into the garage the night before for a nail in the tire. And Peter and Gillian were far across town visiting Gillian's brother, the balloon artist salesman, and Vincent had no car, even after two years of a good job, and she had made her last desperate plea to Sean, who picked her up in ten minutes in a battered down rust colored two seater Toyota, and it coughed and sputtered the short 15 minutes to her old home, which had become Amy's home four years ago, and Bruce's home a few years afterwards.

Sean had pulled into her old driveway to the sight of her daughter in flannel pajamas bottoms, giant gray sleep camisole and bare feet, her cellphone grasped in her hand, saying Bruce had left work and was taking the girls out of their home economic/cooking class, and she didn't have her overnight bag was because Rebecca's cat had eaten a pack of Nutter Butters and had thrown up in it the night before and everything inside it was still wet and smelled like cat vomit. And Maxine listened to all of this while ushering Amy into the car and squeezing her in beside Sean in an uncomfortable manner that couldn't be helped until Amy ran back, fully pregnant, and fully in labor, and in bare feet, to grab the keys to her own car, and her running shoes. And after climbing into her gray Volvo, they finally screeched over the dry leaves still on the driveway from last fall, Sean at the wheel why Amy yelled directions at him on how to drive stick so he didn't crash and kill them all

At the time, that moment had been the most stressful one of the day. But it was one that Maxine would've gladly traded from the one that had her knitting an unknown shape for something to do instead of beat the doors down to the OR and demand to know what was going on.

She looked up for another one of the countless times she had before, still seeing the gray doors closed with the words: Authorized Personnel Only written in a shock of red across it.

Just to the edge was a glimpse of Stu Collins, who stood at the nurse's station with a line of blood stained bandages tapped across his nose like a misplaced moustache, talking to a nurse in blue scrubs and a uniformed police officer from the Hartford Police Department. The officer had a pad of paper in his hand and was writing things down, but he and Stu were too far away to hear anything.

Maxine stilled in her knitting and watched the conversation. Rebecca was next to her sitting on the edge of the seat, her weight resting on the tips of her sneakers, elbows on her jeans with her hands half hidden in the dark red hooded jacket she wore, the canvas of her sneakers began to squeak as she tapped one foot up and down and up and down on the tile, watching the officer talk to Stu Collins. There were two seats next to them that were empty of people, but were filled with one large bag and a cluster of plastic trucks belonging to Walt and Ned, both of whom were sitting on a green blanket spread out by Gillian's feet, more toys scattered around them. They were moving the toys in crashing motions like an Indy race, Lauren sat cross legged on the floor next to the boys, moving a fire truck back and forth into the path of the boys' trucks, but with no sound effects.

"Boom!" Ned started hitting Walt's truck hard with his yellow one with a loud yell "Boom!"

"Ned sweetie," Gillian set a hand on her son's shoulder, leaning down to him. "Don't be so loud-"

But Ned was five, and was in the stage where he liked to do what he wanted. So he didn't listen to his mother and he banged his truck into Walt's truck so hard it tipped over with a spin of plastic wheels. "Die!" He picked up the truck and slammed it down on top of Lauren's fire truck "Die, die, DIE!"

"Ned Stop It!" Lauren screamed at him, startling the boy into dropping his truck and turning the adult eyes of her family on her.

Lauren jumped her feet and threw the truck down with enough force that it shot one of the wheels off and sent it rolling across the floor. "Stop talking about dying!" She jerked her head away and turned to face Stu in a neck jerking movement. "This is all your fault!" She walked around the couch and started walking hurriedly towards him.

"Lauren, Lauren!-" Maxine dropped her knitting and rushed over to her granddaughter, grabbing her arm stopping her from moving forward anymore.

"Mom asked you to leave, and you didn't listen!" Lauren jerked in her grandmother's grip, tears moving down her face "You never listened to her! You never loved her! And she and the baby could die and it's because of you!"

"Lauren-"

Lauren gave one last hard jerk and pulled out of Maxine's grip, taking off in a run down the left side of the hallway, pushing past nurses and doctor that got in her way.

"Lauren Cassidy!" Maxine called after her, stopped in her movement from following her by Vincent standing up from his seat.

"I'll get her," Vincent turned around and ran after his niece with a call of her name.