Page 11 of Cullen
“I can’t tell what’s clean or not.It looks like they’ve been trying to do their own laundry.”He said that’s what he thought as well.“It all smells, no matter how many times they’ve washed it.I can’t imagine them trying to go to school smelling like they did.No wonder the other kids make fun of them.”
“I’m buying them new clothing.And I found their backpack from school, too.Their grade cards were still in them.”She showed how well the kids were doing despite their parents.“It looks like Beth has good grades as well.How can they treat them like this?”
“I don’t know.”He had something else to tell her, but he wasn’t sure how she was going to take it.It was about them being married in the eyes of the law.“Good.One less thing that we have to worry about.I’m assuming that someone did it so that we could take the kids to our house?”
“Yes.Mom didn’t want anyone coming back on us for raising them without the benefit of marriage.Though I don’t know why that matters anymore.Most families in the housing aren’t married anyway.”She said she’d have to thank his mom.“I thought that you’d be upset.We’ve only known one another for a few days.”
“It feels right.Like I’ve known you all my life, and being married to you is the next step.I love you, Cullen.”He told her that he loved her as well.“Then we’ll be able to raise the kids with love and understanding.It’s the best we can do and probably the first time they’ve had love given to them freely since they were born.I can’t believe my sister did those things to her kids.”
“Your sister has been arrested for child endangerment.As well as hitting a state employee.He’ll be fine, but he took quite a blow to the head that caused him to have sixteen stitches.”Emmie asked him what he’d been hit with.“A ball bat.It’s what she hit the kids with, too.I guess they’re testing it for blood as we speak.The police have some unsolved cases of some blunt trauma to the head on a few other people who live in the area.”
“So they think she or both of them have been using it around town?For some reason, that doesn’t even surprise me at all.I can see them both using it on their kids as well as anyone that gets in their way.”She laughed a little, but it didn’t sound humorous at all.“I’m guessing she’ll want me to bail her out now, too.The two of them in jail is just where they need to be.I can’t believe that I only came here to get to know the kids and all of this has happened.”
“Call it fate.If not for you coming here, I wouldn’t have met you, and we wouldn’t be mates yet.I have a feeling that we would have met anyway, but this has been so much nicer.”She agreed with him.“Once things get all settled with your family, then we’ll work on us.We have plenty of time to get to know one another and to make love.I can wait on you to get things situated with everything.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.”The two of them left the house and headed toward the car she’d been renting.He was going to have to get her something else to drive around.It was costing a fortune for her to drive it around like she owned it.“We’ll have to do some guessing on their sizes.I couldn’t finda thing with their tags on them.”
“I’ll ask my mom.She’ll be really good at guessing their sizes.She does it when they have donated clothing at the church.”Emmie said that they take her with them.“Yes, I think that’s a wonderful idea.She’ll want to see the kids anyway.I know that she’s been busy with my brother and his wife when they have kids coming to the house for temporary housing.She’ll have them calling her grandma in no time.”
“I can see her doing that.”They both laughed, and he reached out to his mom.She said that she’d love to go with them and would buy them lunch too.He’d not realized how late it was until then and was surprised that it was nearly one in the afternoon.Since leaving the hospital at nine this morning, they’d gotten nothing done.
It took them nearly three hours to get enough clothing for the kids to wear for a week.He would have forgotten socks and shoes if Mom hadn’t gone with them, and as it was, they guessed the wrong size for Beth’s shoes.But she didn’t mind.She said she was used to wearing things that didn’t fit her.As they were leaving the hospital, the kids wanted to know where they were going.
“To my house that I share with Cullen.You’ve never been there before, but we have plenty of room for the two of you.Or you can share a room.”Marshall was in too much pain to share, he told them, but he’d do it if it meant that he didn’t have to mess up their house.“You’ll be fine, honey.We’ll take good care of you.”
Neither one of them wanted any supper, so they helped them up to bed to rest.Beth was hurting too, but she was trying to be brave.Marshall took a pain pill and was out even before he was put in his pajamas.His heart broke for the two kids, and he wanted to find their parents and hurt them in the same way.But he’d bide his time, waiting on what the judge said to them when he came into town next week.
“I just heard from the jail.Mary Beth is wanting me to come down and see about getting her out.I told them to tell her not to call anymore.I wonder what she’d do if she found out that we had the kids with us?”He said she’d probably want money for us having them.“I don’t doubt that you’re right.It seems exactly like something that she’d say.Like I was some kind of babysitter that was paying her for watching over them.”
“She’s going to lose everything in the house, too.The inspector was able to call in someone else, and she did the inspection while no one was home.The place is a total disaster.They found that the refrigerator hadn’t been plugged in for some time, and the things in it had spoiled.That’s just the one thing that I was told about.Oh, and the master bedroom is full of unopened snacks that they’d been hoarding.She wasn’t kidding when she said that Bash needed something to eat between meals.It looks like he’d been keeping them all for himself, too.”
At nine, he went up to check on the kids.Beth was still sleeping, but Marshall was awake.He said he was hungry and wanted just a little bit to eat.He said he was afraid of being sick again.He’d been sick in the hospital when they’d tried to give him something there.
He fixed him a sandwich and some milk and took it up to him.There were cookies, too, that he could eat instead of the sandwich, but he ate it all.He was glad to see that he had his appetite back after all that had happened to him.He seemed to be breathing better, too, after having a long nap.Cullen asked him if he had any questions.
“What’s going to happen to us?”He said he’d stay here until they could figure out what the state wanted to do with them.“I mean, when the judge comes.Momma said we’d go to jail because she’d been hurt.Then when the inspector showed up, she said that we was the ones that messed up the house all the time and that if there was any jail time for the mess, it had to be our fault.Then she hit us both and that man.”
“First of all, I think the inspector knows who caused the mess.It was all on your parents.They could have kept the house in a lot better shape than they did, so he’s going to fine them or whatever else he thinks needs to be done to them.”He asked again if they would go to jail.“No.Not while I’m alive.You’ll stay here until such time as we know what’s going to happen with the courts.No one willtake you to jail, I promise you that.You’ve done nothing wrong.”He looked so relieved that he wished that he’d told him that sooner.
“Mom told us that we was going to be living in a cardboard box.Is that true?I can do it so long as my sister is all right.You can take her in if you don’t have the room for the two of us.”He said that he had a big house and that he could take on more kids if it came to that.“Thank you.I never lived in a box before, but I would have if necessary.”
“You’re going to be just fine living here.We’ll make sure that you get better, and then we’ll figure out other things that go with having you live here.Like things that you like to do.My mom and dad are looking forward to meeting the two of you, too.”He asked if he had a lot of family, that he’d heard that he had a lot.“I have five brothers and their wives.Your aunt and I have gotten married, so you’ll be safe living here.Not that we’d not take care of you anyway, but this way, if it comes to it, we can say you’re our children if you need us to.Do you understand?”
“You’re going to be our parents if mom and dad go to jail.It happened to my friend Colby.His parents are both in jail on drug stuff.”He could tell that Marshall was getting tired again.“I want to make sure that my sister is all right, but I don’t want to wake her up.She was hurting pretty badly when Mom hit her with the bat.”
“She’s got a broken arm, but she has pain medication to take like you do.You just tell me when you need it, and I’ll make sure you have it.”He said he just wanted to sleep.“Good for you.I’ll leave you to it for now, but I’ll check up on you throughout the night.I don’t want anything to happen to either of you.”
“I don’t either.Seeing my mom with that bat scared me something terrible.I hope she gets in big trouble for hitting us.I’m not supposed to say that, but I’m not lying when I tell you how scared I was that she was going to kill us this time.”He asked how many other times she’d hit them.“Whenever she has a bad day.Mostly, it’s when Dad is in jail.When he gets caught, she gets lonely and does things that he would do to us, so we don’t forget him.I’ll never forget him because of that.Momma thinks, too, that we need lessons in discipline.I don’t know what that means, but it sure is painful when she teaches us.”
After leaving the room, he made his way to the kitchen with the tray that Marshall had used.He was so upset that he thought about going out into the yard and shifting to his great beast to run free for a while.Standing at the door, he decided that he’d go and see Emmie first to see what she was doing.When he found her asleep on the couch, he stripped down to his boxers and made his way outside.He needed this more than he needed anything else right now.Calling out to his brothers, he invited any one of them who could join him for a good run and tree climbing, and was happy that they all could join him.It was nearly sunrise when he started to feel better and was glad that they’d been able to join him in feeling better.Even Dallas said he’d needed the same thing, as he’d been having trouble today, too.
~*~
Mary Beth couldn’t believe they’d put her in jail.She couldn’t see Bash, but she could hear him when he’d called out for her.After a couple of times yelling for him, the officers told her to stop, or they’d put them in separate hallways, and they’d not be able to hear one another at all.She didn’t realize that there were different halls in the jail, but believed them when they said that.She just wanted her Bash and to be next to him.She didn’t understand why they couldn’t share a jail cell.They were married after all.
“I’d like a pencil and paper to write letters to my Bash.”They told her no, they were still getting her situated.“I can be situated and have pencil and paper too.Just hand it over, and I’ll not tell anyone else.I need to make sure he knows that I love him and that I’m not going to be able to visit him anymore until I get out of here.”
“You’re not getting out of here until the judge comes around.Even then, I’d not expect to be able to see the light of day for a while.You hit a state officer and your kids.Not to mention all the other stuff that happened with your house in the welfare area.”She told him what it was called.“I don’t care what it’s called.You took advantage of the system, and they’re fighting back.You should have takenbetter care of your stuff.”
