Ellen Meeropol - House Arrest

House Arrest
Copyright 2011 by Ellen Meeropol
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

eBook layout by Marcus Slater
Book design by Mark E. Cull

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meeropol, Ellen.
House Arrest : a novel / Ellen Meeropol.1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59709-499-3 (alk. paper)
1. NursesFiction. 2. Pregnant womenFiction. 3. Home detentionFiction. 4. Cult membersFiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.E375H68 2011
813.6dc22
2010040787

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
Pasadena, CA
www.redhen.org

Acknowledgements

The women in my manuscript group read these chapters more than once, with patience and insight. My deep appreciation to Lydia Kann, Kris Holloway, Jacqueline Sheehan, Rita Marks, Marianne Banks, Dori Ostermiller, and Brenda Marsian. I am grateful for the support, friendship, and mentorship I received from the Stonecoast MFA community. Thank you Lee Hope, A. Manette Ansay, Michael C. White, Alan Davis, Lesla Newman, Ann Hood, Meriah Crawford, David Page, and especially the Vanettes: Sarah Stromeyer, Ginnie Gavrin, Sharon Doucet, and Perky Alsop. Thank you to those who generously shared their expertise and knowledge with meAmy Romanczuk, Liz and Jim Goldman, Jane Bobowicz, Juanita Martnez, Jane Frey, Ruth and Sam Small, Rabbi Amita Jarmon, Rhoda Boughton, Hermine Levey Weston, Susan Galvin, Frances Goldin, Joan Grenier, Jon Weissman, and Bill Newman. Many thanks also to publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek, agent Roger S. Williams, and to Kate Gale and all the staff at Red Hen Press. This book owes a great debt to my former patients at Shriners Hospital and their families, who taught me about spina bifida, about latex allergy, and about perseverance.
My daughters graciously invited these characters into our family, allowing them to monopolize many visits and conversations. Thank you, Jenn and Rachel. Finally and always, thank you, Robby. For everything. For Robby, life partner in everything

1 ~ Emily

I tried to get out of the assignment. Prenatal visits to a prisoner? Okay, house arrest, same difference. I couldnt believe that I was supposed to take care of a woman whose child died in a cult ritual. What kind of mother could get so involved in an oddball religion that shed let her baby freeze to death? And what kind of name was Pippa?

Dont get me wrong. Every patient deserves expert and compassionate care. Even the most despicable criminal. I learned that in nursing school and I believe it, really. Still, this assignment gave me the creeps.

Driving to her house that mid-November morning, I knew precious little about Pippa Glenning or her cult. Just that she was under house arrest, which is why I had to visit her every week for routine prenatal monitoring. I knew that her daughter and another kid had died during a religious ceremony in Forest Park last December, their bodies discovered months later. I hadnt paid much attention to the hype of the newspaper articles, but I remembered the headlines: the Frozen Babies Case.

From the assignment sheet, I knew she was twenty-one. Not awfully young to have a baby. A second baby, I reminded myself. No medical records. That did not bode well. Neither did the scrawled sentence in the space for primary care provider: We dont believe in your medicine. Under Religion was written Family of Isis. Ditto for Household Composition: Family of Isis.

Okay, so Ms. Glenning lived in a cult. Nurses meet lots of oddballs. How different could a cult be from a commune? Id had patients in communal households before. It always gave me a twinge, because my parents lived in a commune in Ann Arbor before I was born, and that ended badly. And some people thought my own living situation was weird; I shared the bottom half of a duplex a few blocks away with my cousin Anna and her disabled daughter, and Annas ex-husband Sam lived upstairs.

I am good at this work, I reminded myself as I turned onto the block where the Family of Isis lived. Pioneer Street was new to me. Crowded with triple-decker houses, it sat on the boundary line of the historic Forest Park neighborhood, far removed from the elegant homes along the park and from the duplexes like Annas, neatly painted to emulate the park-side style. Pioneer Street didnt even try. Pippa Glennings house was an anomaly, set back from the cracked sidewalk with a single front door. No rusty bikes chained to the downspout at the corner of the house. No broken flowerpots on the stoop or piled scrap lumber from an unfinished porch repair. No tire swing dangling from the low branch of the single oak in the front yard. How many people lived inside and why didnt their lives spill out into the yard the way their neighbors did? Didnt their children have bikes or red wagons? I parked, took my supplies from the trunk, and rang the doorbell.

I am always excited on the first visit. I think Im at my best with my patients. And Im curious. Okay, nosy. I like seeing how regular people live. But I already knew that Pippa Glenning wasnt regular. I rang the doorbell again and listened to the silence.

The young woman who opened the heavy front door was short and round. Stocky, but not fat, not at all. Spiky yellow hair framed a circular face like the crayoned rays around a childs drawing of a sun. Her eyeglasses were shaped like a pair of wings, set with sparkles. Eyes such a dark blue they were almost black, with puffiness around them. Losing sleep?

You from the nursing agency? Her voice had a trace of a southern accent. Her mouth was round, just like her body. I might have called it generous, except that it didnt smile. She held her head to the side in the same graceful tilt as the orange cat at her feet. I felt tall and gawky.

Yes, I said. Im Emily Klein.

Well, Im Pippa. Come on in. She turned away into the dim hallway.

My heart hammered. This is just another patient, part of the job, I reminded myself. I took a slow breath, bumped my rolling backpack over the threshold step, and entered Pippa Glennings home. I followed her through the dining room, past the commune-sized table covered with a relief map of Massachusetts. Fresh green paint glistened on the Berkshires. My father helped me make a map like that in third grade. Would I ever have a child, to help make paper mach projects for school? Anyway, in a few years Zoe would have assignments like that, and I knew my cousin Anna would let me help.

So there must be kids living here. School-age kids. I hoped the Department of Social Services was keeping a close eye, given what happened to their little brother and sister, or whatever relation those poor babies were.

How many children live here? I asked Pippa.

Two. She kept walking. We can talk in the living room.

Our footsteps echoed on the wood floor. The kids must be in school. I thought about the other adults, tried to imagine cult members working nine-to-five jobs.

At the arched entrance to the living room, I forgot my musings about relief maps and cult employment. The painting stretched eight, ten feet long, covering the entire wall over the fireplace. The artist had applied thick pigment liberally so the intense color exploded from the canvas. The half-woman, half-bird creature watched me, an expression of suspicion on her exotic features. Her massive wings were outstretched. She nursed a baby against one breast and embraced a large black cat against the other.

Next page