Chapter 4- Growing Up
"So as you can imagine the money would triple in, maybe a month? Definitely by-"
"Sawyer!"
Sawyer's ears twitched at the sound of Kate's voice. There wasn't panic (thank God) but there was excitement.
It had been 8 months since they'd pulled into a Motel Six with a drowsy newborn that had to be washed with stolen towels in a rusty sink. Eight months since they'd made her first crib out of a bunch of hangers and a dresser drawer. Sam was a chubby happy baby. But between her and her mother, the money wasn't lasting. After a lot of intense debate about how they were going to solve that problem, they decided cons were significantly safer then armed robbery and less risky then attempting honest work where they could be IDed.
Although it had taken Sawyer three weeks before he'd found a con easy enough, safe enough to get the stamp of approval from the new and improved Maternal Kate. Hell this guy was about as difficult to tackle as a sedated sloth, even the baby could see that.
Which was why he wanted to know what was giving Kate cause to interrupt the grift. He excused himself from the room and vanished across the hall where Kate was playing with Sam.
"What are you-" He never finished. Upon entering the room he saw his sandy hairred toddler taking wobbly steps on her legs. Though she had been going towards her mother, when she saw Sawyer she smiled widely and stretched out her arms to him, changing her course. Sam managed to take a good five steps before falling on the carpeted floor.
Letting loose a great laugh Sawyer swooped down and gathered Sam in his arms.
"Well, well, well! Just couldn't wait to run to daddy, could you?" He bounced the baby, much to her enjoyment.
Kate got up from the floor and crossed to them, kissing the baby's chubby fist, "She knows who spoils her. Such a daddy's girl."
Sawyer leaned in to kiss Kate but was interrupted by a roughly cleared throat.
"Sawyer, are we going to talk business or are you going to change diapers? Give the kid to the woman and let her do her job, and you come be the man!"
"Son of a bitch." Sawyer muttered under his breath.
Kate gave him a look that clearly said Don't curse in front of the baby.
He handed little Sam over to Kate and returned to his target. All of sudden stealing money from the bastard wasn't setting a bad example for the baby…after all the son of a bitch interrupted her first steps.
"I cannot believe she said that!" Kate raged.
"Kids say the damndest things, Freckles…"
"Darndest. Kids say the darndest things." She glared at him.
"Sweetcheeks if you want to censor every curse word that comes outta my mouth you're going to have to stuff something in it."
"How about a sock?"
"I was thinking your tongue…but if you're feelin' kinky…"
Kate turned and suddenly they were inches apart, and her eyes said she was feeling anything but kinky, "How can you laugh at a time like this?"
"Easy, it's funny!"
Sam's crying broke up their argument for a moment, crossing to where she lay on a nest of pillows Sawyer picked her up and began rubbing her back, shushing her. In a few minutes she calmed down and proceeded to pull at his hair.
"Ow!" She tugged harder, "Ow! Stop that!"
Sam looked him right in the eye. He would swear to the grave that she was mocking him when she tugged even harder.
"Ow! Son of a –"
"Bit'h!" Sam squealed clapping loudly, a big grin on her face.
Kate growled from across the room, she then appeared out of thin air and took Sam out of Sawyer's arms.
"I can't believe Sam's first word was a curse word." Kate was bouncing the baby on her hip, still fuming, "This is all your fault! She hangs on you all day and you can't watch your language for a single minute!"
"Bit'h! Bit'h!" Sam clapped and giggled as she repeated the word.
Sawyer shrugged with a proud grin, "What can I say? Little missy's got a mouth on her."
He was obviously amused and it only served to infuriate Kate.
"Well if you think that your getting a mouth on you, you are quite mistaken."
His laughter died.
"Now, Kate…."
The bell rang overhead, that sickening tinkle of commercialism with sprinkles. With a grimace at the pink bunnies painted on the walls and the happy frogs sharing ice cream with them Sawyer pushed his sunglasses into his hair.
"I drove an hour for this? Jesus Christ." It was almost as if the cuteness of the place made him physically ill.
The teenager at the counter seemed unimpressed by him when he went to the counter and asked about birthday cake. Behind him the bell tolled again and the boy straightened up, became alert and even put on a smile.
"Can I help you, Miss?"
Kate curled up on Sawyer's arm and the boy looked crestfallen. Until she leaned forward on the counter, showing a little cleavage.
"Hi…" She let her sunglasses slip down her nose and smiled flirtatiously at the boy, "My niece is having a birthday and her idiot" she swung her head at Sawyer "father forgot that ice cream cakes melt. Consequently we need another one…"
"Sure." The kid got really excited about helping her and said, "The small ones are $5, the medium ones are $8 and the –"
"But we already paid for it!" Kate pouted, "We just drove to the store when the genius back there realized that it was completely demolished. The reservation was under Johnson and we picked it up 2 hours ago…."
She reached forward and straightened his name tag, "Bobby….would you really make me pay for a cake twice just because my brother doesn't have the mental competency of an ant?"
The boy gave her his "charming" smile and said, "No, no of course I wouldn't!"
Ten minutes later they walked out of the shop with a box of a freshly made ice cream cake made out to Sam with pink flowers all over it. They walked over to their truck and turned to the backseat where Sam, strapped in a car seat, was napping. She awoke when the car door slammed and looked hopefully at her parents.
"Did you get me something?" With the single mindedness of a five year old she locked her blue eyes on the box.
"Yeah, we got you a birthday cake." Kate smiled back at her baby.
"Yeah, momma had to pull an Erin Brockovich to get it but we got it." Sawyer retorted but he couldn't pretend to be mad today. Today Sam turned five and it was going to be a fun day.
"Cake!" The child screamed excitedly.
They went to a park and enjoyed their stolen birthday cake. When Kate was throwing out the paper plates and wiping Sam's sticky face, Sam poked Sawyer. Repeatedly. Many times.
"Small Fry you think I've got a squeak-box in me?"
"Do I get presents Daddy?"
Sawyer and Kate exchanged a glance. Kate nibbled on her lower lip. They really didn't have the funds for toys (or the room in the truck). Never one to be beaten Sawyer shook his head.
"Next stop, Toys R Us….better get the goods ready, Erin." Kate snorted at Sawyer even as she pulled down her shirt and adjusted her bra.
"Are we there yet?"
"Sam-" Kate was cut off by an angry Sawyer.
"Do NOT make me pull over this car to tell you we ain't there yet! So help me, Sam!"
Five hours of driving was hell on an eight year old. Especially when mommy and daddy kept fighting "in code" for the duration of the trip.
"I think she'd be fine on the horse…it doesn't kick or nothing." Sawyer tried to come back into his argument with Kate.
"It's not the horse I'm worried about and you damn well know it." She was sick of this fight. Five hours of it didn't put her in a mood to further it, either.
"You're being stupid if you think she won't listen."
Kate stared at Sawyer for a minute. Five hours of dancing around that phrase and he finally just came out and said it.
"I'm being stupid to think an eight year old girl might let something slip and suddenly lots of trouble starts for us?"
"I wouldn't slip, Mommy!" Sam tried to help but she had no idea what she was talking about, and both her parents knew that.
"Don't try to help, String Bean." Sawyer warned.
Sam growled and pouted angrily at the window.
Softly Sawyer whispered, "She'll eventually find out how we live…and one day she'll have to take part. It's better we start her now, so she gets used to it….it's teach her or leave her, Kate. You know that."
"We're not giving her up." Kate hissed and then sighed, "It's just… why does everything have to be a crime, Sawyer?"
He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close, kissing her head. In the backseat Sam exclaimed, "Just cause your done fighting doesn't mean you can be gross!"
They had to laugh.
"Dad! I found this great house…big as a museum! Codes easy! No dogs…"
"Short Stack, you got a fettish with breaking and entering?" Sawyer groaned as his twelve year old daughter burst into their motel room at 7 am. Like her mother, she was an early riser.
"Yeah maybe I have a thing for eating food that isn't take out at the same time that I take money to buy gas to avoid the FBI to stay with my folks…that's a shitload of birds with one stone."
"Language!" Kate called from the bathroom.
"Kate, it is too damn early for censorship." Sawyer eyed his daughter, "And too damn early for felonies."
Kate and Sam rolled their eyes in exactly the same fashion and burst into their own tirades.
"You're always saying how I should contribute something to-"
"-wonder why she's so rambunctious! If we don't at least TRY to set an example for her –"
"- and its not like YOU haven't done anything WAY worse-"
"-Boggles my mind how you can be so flippant about-"
Sawyer put a pillow over his head, attempting to drown them out, but then they simultaneously burst out with, "Are you even listening to me!"
"All right! Jesus Christ I surrender!" He rolled out of bed and shuffled towards the shower muttering obscenities under his breath.
Kate, having defeated Sawyer, turned on her daughter.
"And what is this about a house? We're not breaking into a house."
"But moooooom!"
"No 'buts'!" Kate began to make the bed. It was a habit she'd gotten into that Sam had never known her not to do. She said once it made her feel like she had some small roots, that there was still a bed that she could make.
"Can you really tell me we can't use the money?"
"That's not your problem…"
"Yeah, sure its not. I'll just eat some old shirts, I hear cotton's a great source of fiber."
"Don't you start with me!" Kate shook a sock at Sam as though it were a threatening object that could coerce her to obey.
Sam grabbed another sock and mimicked her mother, "Don't treat me like I'm still a baby!"
"I won't! I'll treat you like your twelve. You're not eighteen. You're not twenty one. You're not thirty or forty. You're not grown up, Sam! You're not even a teenager. And I will treat you exactly like that!" Kate threw some clothes in one of their suitcases, "You're not just going to start committing crimes like its Little League! So just slow down!"
Sam was close to tears when she screamed, "You don't understand! You'll NEVER UNDERSTAND!"
Sawyer emerged from the shower into the war zone and immediately blew a sharp whistle between his thumb and pinky, and shouted, "CEASE and FUCKING DISSIST!"
When the girls quieted and looked at him he said, "Can someone explain why I just walked into the goddamn Baghdag of bitch fights?"
Kate looked at him, "Your daughter wants to break into a house."
"Yeah…you didn't get that memo earlier?" He patted his head with a towel, "And why is she only mine when she's doing something bad?" He shook his head, "Never mind that…I think that we should do this. We need the money and she needs to experience."
"Why should she get experience in breaking and entering?"
"Uh…sweetheart…not sure if you realized that with two wanted felons raising her…she's bound to be party to some crimes. If you don't remember, she already has been, she's been fine…" Kate drew a breath as though to argue, "And don't dare try to pull that 'Do as I say, not as I do' bulls-" Kate gave him a different look so he adjusted the word before it was out, "-pucky. Let's just case the joint, if she's right its easy money, if she's wrong we walk."
Kate rubbed her eyes and gave up, "Fine. But we walk if it goes bad."
Twenty minutes later they were in a house the size of a castle. It was loaded with goods….too bad they couldn't move goods. They needed cash. And plenty was just lying around. Sawyer and Kate got down to business, the money and anything that wouldn't leave too much of a paper trail. Sam meanwhile was exploring. She was flipping through magazines, admiring the cabinets and going through the fridge. At one point she went into the bathroom.
"Uh….mom!...Mom!" She called out. Kate came to the door and talked through it, "What is it, Sam?"
"Could you please come in here?"
They had been tense since Sawyer had blatantly sided with Sam in regards to the house. Kate was not pleased with the entire situation. When she walked in she saw her twelve year old sitting on the toilet with bloodied underwear around her ankles.
"Oh, baby," Kate cooed, "You got your period."
Sam was quiet for once in her life and merely nodded, she was blushing a brilliant color and seemed to grow quiet small in her confusion and embarrassment. Kate smiled for a minute…her little girl was growing up. Now the period, later the bras, then the maturing…it seemed like just yesterday she was eating for two, now she was going to be buying Tampax for two.
"Uh…mom?"
Kate snapped out of her reverie and into action, "Uh right…well. Your period is normal. Every girl gets it. Comes once a month and-"
"Mom…I can read a book for information…can you help me, please?"
"Oh…" Kate headed out the door calling out, "Wait there!"
"Where the hell would I go?" Sam asked herself in a small voice, feeling exposed in the big white bathroom.
Soon her mother returned with a handful of maxi pads and some underwear, "Here, put these on-"
"Those are someone else's underwear!" Sam looked thoroughly horrified.
"Yeah, I know but it's what we have…and besides this goes between you and strange people panties." Kate held up a pad and dove into explanations. They stole a pair of sweatpants for Sam before leaving, throwing her soiled clothes away.
In the car, when Sam had fallen asleep, Sawyer asked what had happened at the house.
"She got her period." Kate said simply.
"Son of a bitch." Sawyer groaned, "You mean to tell me I gotta put up with two women PMSing?"
Kate gave him an almost evil smile, "Well, it should at least improve your ability to find drug stores and bathrooms…and just think, we won't have it at the same time. When one ends, the other starts up."
He suddenly remembered something his father had taught him: Never trust women, there's something creepy about things that bleed for five days and don't die.
TBC
Author's Notes:
So….it seems that my initial outline is one chapter off from what's actually occurring. This chapter was supposed to happen last chapter. And next chapter was supposed to happen this chapter.
But frankly I came home from watching Underworld Evolution and didn't feel like delving into that whole second part of this…and it ends well here.
Things to consider:
Just when ARE Jana and PB&J coming back? (next chapter!)
Thanks again to Butterfly! The constant presence hounding me for an update.