Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (1/1)
Title: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fandom: CSI
Characters: Nick/Greg pre-slash
Warnings: This fiction is pro-choice and relates to the investigation of a crime committed in a clinic that provides abortion. If this is not for you, please do not read. Also contains a bit of mild bad language / blasphemy. And dead kittens. No, seriously.
Length: ~4647
Icon: by rhcp_csi
Summary: Nick and Greg investigate an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic. While they are there, Nick remembers an event from his teenage years in Texas.
A/N: This fic follows on from Passing Judgment on my Life, but can stand completely alone.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
Grissom glanced down the sheet of paper on his clipboard and raised an eyebrow.
“Planned Parenthood has received some more protest objets.”
Catherine shook her head, hand on one hip. “What is it this time? Another batch of photos of women entering the clinic with targets photoshopped on their backs?”
“Dead kittens.”
“Dead kittens?”
Grissom’s face was deadpan. “Apparently someone broke in and left a box full of dismembered kittens wrapped in photos of fetuses in one of the exam rooms. There were also some threatening messages painted on the walls.” He paused. “Nick, Greg. Could you two head over there?”
Nick cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t it be better to send Sara or Catherine?”
Sara looked furious; worried that her solo 419 would be taken away from her. Grissom raised his eyebrows.
Greg put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “They do let men on to the premises.”
Nick’s face flamed bright red and for a second he wanted to smack Greg hard in the mouth. He had meant that the service users might be more comfortable having a couple of women CSIs crawling all over the place but he couldn’t really put it into words. He envied Greg the fact that he always knew stuff like this; knew what to do in any given situation or subculture. The fruits of a San Francisco childhood. Despite the fact that Greg wasn’t even a CSI, was in fact only at the earliest stages of tagging after actual criminalists to get some experience, Nick felt like he was the one who was the stumbling neophyte.
Task assignments had moved on. So had Greg’s hand, although Nick could still feel its warmth on his shoulder.
1985 | near Dallas, Texas
Nick watched as his sister Annie shook two Cheerios into the bottom of her cereal bowl and sprinkled a spoonful of milk over the top. Evidence of a hearty breakfast faked, Annie pulled her compact out of her bookbag.
Catching him staring, Annie pasted on a quick, brittle smile. “Mary-Beth says that if I don’t stop pigging out then my cheerleader uniform is going to look disgusting.”
Mary-Beth. Queen Bee of Nick and Annie’s high school and allegedly one of Annie's best friends.
Nick had loved Andrea, whom Annie had been seated next to in kindergarten thanks to alphabetized seat assignments. She and Annie had been inseparable during elementary school. He remembered lazy summer days when the three of them would ride across the pasture surrounding the Stokes’ ranch house and spend hours damming the river or building forts out of brush. He remembered the three of them doing crazy experiments with the chemistry set he’d been given for his tenth birthday and the time Annie singed her eyebrows and then Andrea did hers too, out of solidarity. He remembered Annie and Andrea’s dark heads bent over technics Lego. He remembered Annie’s check-shirted arm slung easily across Andrea’s shoulders as they whispered secrets in the tree-house in which Nick had always been a visitor.
All of that had ended when they went to high school. Annie was only ten months older than Nick, and so they were in the same class although not in the same classes. On the first day of school Annie wore her customary jeans and a shirt. Although she’d always been one of the prettiest girls at elementary school, Nick watched the colour drain from her face at the sea of skirts and dresses and the freshly made-up faces of her classmates. On the second day of school he saw Mary-Beth raise her eyebrows and smirk at Annie’s clumsily applied blue eyeshadow and watched his sister grit her teeth as she realised what the rules of this new game were.
Nick couldn’t place the moment when Annie’s stride became tentative footsteps but he knew it had something to do with Mary-Beth. Mary-Beth who had drawn the new, stylish Annie into the circle of girls that giggled and flipped their hair as the football team walked the halls like teenaged gods. Mary-Beth whose sharp eyes missed nothing and who could elevate or crush her acolytes with a single word.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“Nick, you need to turn left here.” Greg’s voice cut across his thoughts, and he swung into the correct lane. Greg shot him an appraising look.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you with Grissom.” Greg sounded genuinely penitent. “Or to get Sara all mad at you at the thought she wouldn’t get to hang out at the Bellagio with a DB.”
Nick sighed. “I just thought that the women using the clinic might feel better if Sara and Catherine were here rather than a couple of guys all in their business.”
“Kind of like the way they used have women police officers around just for dealing with women’s stuff?” Greg’s voice was carefully neutral.
“I’m not saying that Sara and Catherine are part of a ladies’ auxiliary, Greg.” Nick’s voice was harsher. “Lord knows that they’re smarter than us.”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Maybe equality will be when they’re dumber than us and we don’t think it’s because they’re women.”
Nick shot him an irritated look. “I don’t think women are stupid, Greg. Four brilliant sisters, remember?”
1985 | Dallas, Texas
It got so that Nick saw Annie most often at their lockers between classes. Although the school never put siblings in the same classes if it could help it, their lockers were alphabetized and the two Stokes siblings’ were right next to each other.
That Tuesday in fall, Nick came closest yet to dragging his sister off to a school supply closet and begging her to remember who she really was.
Brian Andrews, a football player so archetypal that Nick almost admired his devotion to the cliché, was leaning against the locker adjacent to Annie’s. He was sharing his views on the changes to the pass interference rule with the only Stokes not to really like football. At the same time he was being laden with the books that Annie needed for homework. The studly and dutiful boyfriend in action.
He looked down at the growing pile and shook his head. “Are you turning into a nerd, Annie Stokes?”
Annie froze and then laughed the light, mirthless laugh that Nick was growing to despise. “For sure I am not, Brian Andrews.” She swatted him with one hand. “In fact, could you give me a couple of pointers on the bio homework?”
Brian smiled down at her as Nick fought the urge to laugh hysterically. His whip smart sister, who had only last week come into his bedroom to discuss Richard Dawkins’ The Extended Phenotype, was asking the dumbest boy in school to help her with studying.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“Actually,” said Greg carefully. “I didn’t know you had four sisters.”
“Yeah,” said Nick, wondering how over-cautious he had become about sharing any aspect of his life with his co-workers. “I’m the youngest of seven. Bill Jr, Beth, Alex, Mel, Jessica, Annie and me.”
“How far apart are you?”
“Twelve years from Bill to me. Eleven months between me and Annie.”
“Eleven months? Your poor Mom.”
“Yeah.” Nick turned the Denali carefully into the Planned Parenthood parking lot.
They grabbed their kits and identified themselves at reception. Nick tried to avoid staring at the rows of women waiting to see a doctor or nurse; tried to give them all their privacy.
“Jesus,” Greg breathed, surveying the scene in the exam room. Their meeting with the clinic director had only taken a few minutes. Then she'd waved them towards one of the four exam rooms and procedure rooms that lined the length of the building.
She had looked weary, rather than shocked and Nick found himself wondering how often this happened. How often she’d received disgusting things in the mail or opened the door to find the sanctity of her workplace violated.
She had explained that the clinic had had to reschedule procedures because the room he and Greg were standing in was out of commission, which was probably what the perpetrator intended.
“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Greg read the bloody, streaking message from the wall. He turned to Nick. “What does that mean?”
Nick pulled his camera towards his face. “It’s from Psalm 139. It’s talking about the fetus.”
Greg’s face wrinkled. “Nick, are you ok with being here? I mean, I know you probably don’t agree with abortion.”
1985 | Dallas, Texas
“And we commend to you, Lord, those women who have sinned in this way. And we ask you, Lord, to bring them to you and to help them understand that they can be forgiven, that all fall short of the glory of God and must be redeemed by your blood. Amen.”
“Amen.” Nick was uncomfortable in the pew between Annie and his Momma and resisted the urge to pull at his collar. Even Pastor Johnson was sweating as the air-conditioning struggled to cope with the unseasonably warm November day. He wished he’d gone hunting with his father and Bill Jr.; indifferent to shooting though he was.
Looking around him, he noticed Andrea and her parents sitting a few rows in front of the Stokes family and glanced sideways at his sister to see if she’d noticed. Annie’s head was bowed, seemingly in devotion. She was as aware as he of their father’s view that women bore the responsibility for family piety and decorum, and years of practice had rendered her performance flawless.
Annie hadn’t spoken to Andrea since last year. Since the day when Annie and Mary-Beth were standing with a group from the football team and Andrea walked past. Sensing an opportunity for cruelty, Mary-Beth cocked her head and looked through her lashes at Brian Andrews.
“What is wrong with that girl?” Her voice was breathy but loud enough to be heard by everyone in the hallway. “She’s such a dyke.”
Nick, collecting books from his own locker, saw Andrea’s head snap up and her look of entreaty to Annie. He saw Annie’s face as the conflicting emotions rolled across it, like a storm across the pasture at the ranch. Looking into the triumphant eyes of Mary-Beth, she laughed unconvincingly. “She sure is.”
If Andrea had been less blinded by tears she might have seen that Annie’s face was frozen as Mary-Beth threaded her arm through Brian’s and escorted Annie's boyfriend away.
Nick wanted to run after Andrea and explain, but he didn’t know what to say. How could you explain someone giving up on what was real to pursue a pantomime?
Present Day | Las Vegas, Nevada
Nick was stunned. “What makes you think I don’t agree with abortion.”
Greg looked discomfited. “Well, I just thought that Momma Stokes would have had you all lined up for church in your Sunday best, hearing about how abortion and gays were sinful.”
“Way to assume, Greggo.” Nick shook his head. “My Momma is a lawyer and she did raise us Baptist but she also raised us with an understanding of shades of grey. I’ve never been able to bring myself to even think I should have the right to tell a woman what should happen to her body.”
He placed a yellow marker next to another group of dismembered kitten parts and took a short volley of photos.
“And yet you’re happy to be told what you should be doing with yours?” Greg’s expression was unreadable.
Nick's shoulders sagged. “That’s not it, Greg. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” Greg’s voice was sardonic. “I’ve never quite understood the theological distinction between you fucking all those women you’re not really interested in and sleeping with a man you might love. So the only kind of sex you’re allowed is the sex you don’t really want?”
1986 | Dallas, Texas
Out of deference to an unwritten but clearly understood code, the boys in Nick’s class didn’t talk smack about Annie. It wasn’t so much that she was Nick’s sister but that she was a cheerleader, and therefore attainable only by members of the football team.
Everyone knew what you had to do to get to wear a football player’s letterman jacket and Nick felt sick when he saw Annie wearing Brian Andrews’. Not because he didn’t like the thought of his sister having sex so much as that she wasn’t remotely happy with Brian. He saw the dark circles around her eyes in the morning before she covered them with the thick makeup all the cheerleaders wore. He saw the reluctance with which she dragged herself to the phone before she put on that fake-cheerful voice to talk to Brian.
He’d come across Brian and Annie once in a corner at a party they were all at. He was holding her arm hard enough to hurt and hissing something about being shown up by her flirting with the quarterback.
“You’re my girl,” he had said through gritted teeth and it hadn’t sounded like romance to Nick as much as an assertion of ownership.
He was about to step forward and pop Brian hard in his stupid square face but the fear in Annie’s eyes and the almost imperceptible shake of her head had made him stand down.
He’d tried to talk to her about it afterwards, but she’d laughed off his objections. She was dating a football player, silly. She was the luckiest girl in the world.
Present | Las Vegas, Nevada
“What’s it to you, Greg?” Nick’s voice was hurt and the barrage of questions had made his head start to ache just behind his eyes. “What do you care who I have sex with?”
Greg looked at him for a beat too long, but Nick had turned to get a swab from his kit and missed it completely.
"Because I'm your friend and I know that you have feelings for guys and I think that you should be able to act on those without feeling you're recreating Sodom and Gomorrah and the Archangel Gabriel will come and smite you."
Nick raised his eyebrows. "I don't feel like I'm going to get smote. Smited. Whatever."
He couldn't explain, he realised. He couldn't explain that it wasn't an old, old book and the possibility of salvation lost keeping him from another man's bed. He couldn't explain that he had lost whatever faith he had because the real world didn't seem to measure up to the nice sermons his Pastor delivered every Sunday. He couldn't explain that the reason he was denying a major part of himself was because he couldn't bear to see the disgust in his Daddy's eyes.
Greg stood, hand on hip, unconsciously echoing the gesture that Catherine had made when getting her righteous on about anti-choice protesters.
"So what then?"
"This isn't what my family want for me." His voice hitched and Greg's face lost its inquisitorial sharpness as he sensed the weight of that explanation for Nick.
Greg looked at the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm being really simplistic and I have no right to tell you how to feel or what your issues are."
Nick nodded his acceptance of the apology and swabbed a pool of blue liquid from the floor.
"It's just," said Greg, hesitantly. "That I want you to be happy. And you're an amazing person who deserves to be happy. And if there's anything, well, you know."
Nick took a steadying breath. "Thanks, Greggo."
He turned his attention to the exam chair in the middle of the room, grin fading. This was the epicentre of kitten carnage and the word ‘slut’ had been written in blood in the middle of the backrest. He positioned the scale and started to get off some more shots.
1986 | near Dallas, Texas
The spring sunshine streamed into the yellow kitchen of the Stokes’ ranch house. Its heat on her skin filled Jillian Stokes with an extra measure of the warmth that she felt as she surveyed her two youngest children. Sprawled over the breakfast table, Annie was reading the newspaper while Nick pored over a copy of Scientific American.
Sipping her coffee, she grinned at the thought that it had been about five minutes since Bill Jr had been sitting at the same table reading an age-inappropriate gun magazine slipped to him by his father, while Nicky sat in his highchair flicking applesauce at passersby.
Annie looked up and caught her mother’s fond gaze. “Momma, is it still ok for me to use your car today?”
The smile left Jillian Stokes’ face. “No, honey. I’m sorry, I forgot I said you could have it but I have some errands to run today. Mrs. Willets is sick and I need to get a whole bunch of things for her locally.”
“I’ve got the truck today,” Nick offered. “Want me to run you someplace?” Nick, having driven for years on the ranch, had passed his driving test a week after his sixteenth birthday. Two weeks later, he was still desperate for opportunities to drive his family around.
Annie pulled the sleeves of her SMU sweatshirt, a gift from sister Mel, over her hands. “I’m just meeting Andrea today in Dallas to do some work on a history project.”
Jillian was collecting things for her purse from around the kitchen and missed the suspicious look that Nick was directing at Annie. Nick waited until his mother had left the kitchen before turning to Annie. “Where are you really going, Annie?”
Annie pulled a face. “If you must know, I’m going to meet Mary-Beth and some of the guys from the team. You know Momma and Daddy don’t really like her.”
“With good reason.”
Annie looked down at her hands.
Nick sighed. “How long will it be til you’re ready? I want to get going as soon as possible.”
Annie shrugged. “I’m ready now.”
Nick couldn’t stop himself looking her over. SMU sweatshirt. Jeans. No makeup. Unstyled hair. He thought she looked fine but he hadn’t seen her leave the house without makeup and hairspray in years.
Pulling in to let Annie out at the faintly alternative coffee shop she’d indicated on the broad Dallas street, Nick was still confused. This didn’t look like the kind of upscale place Mary-Beth frequented.
As he pulled away from the kerb, something made Nick check his rear-view mirror. He spotted Annie leaving the coffee shop and running across the street. A feeling of foreboding gathering in his stomach, he circled the block and pulled in front of the building Annie had gone into. It was a women’s health clinic.
In the four hours it took Annie to come out, Nick had run over every possible scenario for why Annie might be visiting a doctor in secret. He had hoped that she would come out after half an hour with a package of birth control pills in her bag, angry that he had been checking up on her. After an hour and half had gone by he’d phoned his friend Paul to reschedule their study session.
When Annie appeared, blinking, at the front door of the clinic, he was leaning against the truck. She acknowledged him with a tiny nod of her head.
Present | Las Vegas, Nevada
Nick’s careful examination of the exam chair with his flashlight had yielded a possible palm-print, presumably made when the perpetrator leant against it to get purchase for writing on the backrest.
Grabbing a lifter from his kit he smoothed it over the print and expertly peeled it off the surface, sliding the cover down over it.
“I want to thank you for taking so much time over this.” The clinic director was leaning against the door-frame, watching as Nick picked up the ALS wand from his open kit.
“Well,” Nick said, straightening up. “We investigate any crime no matter what we think of the victim, but I personally find it hateful when healthcare providers are targeted by imbeciles.”
The clinic director raised her eyebrows and folded her arms over her chest. “You think we’re healthcare providers?”
Nick shot her a look. “Don’t you?”
She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “I’m sorry. I get so many letters accusing me of infanticide and brutalising women that I start seeing criticism where none exists.”
1986 | near Dallas, Texas
Nick drove them back to the ranch in silence and steered Annie through the dappled shadows of the garden towards the tree-house. Doubling back to the kitchen he filled a bottle with water and grabbed some ice cream and Motrin.
It wasn’t until Nick was unpacking his backpack on the floor of the treehouse, when he wordlessly handed the Motrin and water to Annie, that Annie started to sob as if she would never stop.
When she finally stopped crying, long after the shoulder of Nick’s sweatshirt was soaked through and his arms had started to ache with the strain of holding Annie up, the ice cream was mostly melted.
They ate it anyway, passing the spoon between them.
“I’m not sorry,” Annie said. She had a look of defiance on her face that Nick hadn’t seen in longer than he could count.
“No?” He wasn’t sure whether he thought she should be sorry. On balance, he thought probably not. I mean, what the hell did he know about how this felt?
“And you can’t tell anybody.” This last part was less resolute, and he could see her wondering whether he would tell their parents.
“It’s your secret, Annie.” He paused. “Did you tell Brian?”
She shook her head. “When we first started-“ She waved her hands. “You know. He said that I was responsible for not getting knocked up.” She looked through the treehouse window out towards the river. “I got birth control pills from that same clinic but they only give out a month at a time and I couldn’t always get an appointment when I needed a refill.”
Nick frowned. “What about condoms?”
She avoided his gaze. “Brian said they stopped us from being close.”
“What about ‘no glove, no love’?”
She jerked her head away and it was a minute before Nick's stomach heaved like he'd fallen twelve stories really fast. He fought to keep his voice calm. “You mean he would just go ahead anyway?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Annie paused and Nick saw that she'd started to cry again. “I never said ‘no’ to him. I never said that he couldn’t if he didn’t use one. I just didn’t think he would like it.”
Nick took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around his sister.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“You know,“ said Nick, as they drove back to the lab with a trunk full of samples. “People think that having four sisters means that you understand shoes and hot water bottles and the proper use of chocolate.”
“And it doesn’t?”
“Well, yeah, it does.” Nick smiled. “It also means that you understand other stuff too.” He hesitated. “I find it really hard to talk about a lot of things, Greggo. But because I trust you I’m going to tell you a little secret story about my sister Annie, by way of illustration.”
“What does Annie do?” Greg's face was eager and Nick reflected on how simultaneously nice and silly it was that he was so excited to hear anything about Nick’s family and Nick's past.
“Dr Annie Stokes is an FBI Agent. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and she aced elementary school and all three of her degrees. High school, however, seems to be the moment when all the bullshit we expect of women comes to the boil and Annie nearly drowned in it.”
Nick glanced at Greg who was sitting still, with a look of dawning comprehension on his face.
“No major drama. Just a bust up with a much loved friend that was totally her fault for shallow, crappy reasons; a controlling and pretty abusive football playing boyfriend; and an abortion, like a quarter of American women have. Typical teenage girl stuff. And yet, it took a while for her to bounce back from all of that.”
Greg bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re some backwoods hillbilly who wouldn’t know a copy of Ms magazine if it hit him in the face.”
Nick waved off his apology. “I know what my accent and my silence on this stuff suggests. But you San Francisco types haven't cornered the market on giving a crap and I think it’s time I started letting you know a bit more about what I care about.”
Greg smiled. “That would be nice.”
Nick smiled back. “So, Annie and I were sitting in our treehouse with her friend Andrea--.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fandom: CSI
Characters: Nick/Greg pre-slash
Warnings: This fiction is pro-choice and relates to the investigation of a crime committed in a clinic that provides abortion. If this is not for you, please do not read. Also contains a bit of mild bad language / blasphemy. And dead kittens. No, seriously.
Length: ~4647
Icon: by rhcp_csi
Summary: Nick and Greg investigate an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic. While they are there, Nick remembers an event from his teenage years in Texas.
A/N: This fic follows on from Passing Judgment on my Life, but can stand completely alone.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
Grissom glanced down the sheet of paper on his clipboard and raised an eyebrow.
“Planned Parenthood has received some more protest objets.”
Catherine shook her head, hand on one hip. “What is it this time? Another batch of photos of women entering the clinic with targets photoshopped on their backs?”
“Dead kittens.”
“Dead kittens?”
Grissom’s face was deadpan. “Apparently someone broke in and left a box full of dismembered kittens wrapped in photos of fetuses in one of the exam rooms. There were also some threatening messages painted on the walls.” He paused. “Nick, Greg. Could you two head over there?”
Nick cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t it be better to send Sara or Catherine?”
Sara looked furious; worried that her solo 419 would be taken away from her. Grissom raised his eyebrows.
Greg put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “They do let men on to the premises.”
Nick’s face flamed bright red and for a second he wanted to smack Greg hard in the mouth. He had meant that the service users might be more comfortable having a couple of women CSIs crawling all over the place but he couldn’t really put it into words. He envied Greg the fact that he always knew stuff like this; knew what to do in any given situation or subculture. The fruits of a San Francisco childhood. Despite the fact that Greg wasn’t even a CSI, was in fact only at the earliest stages of tagging after actual criminalists to get some experience, Nick felt like he was the one who was the stumbling neophyte.
Task assignments had moved on. So had Greg’s hand, although Nick could still feel its warmth on his shoulder.
1985 | near Dallas, Texas
Nick watched as his sister Annie shook two Cheerios into the bottom of her cereal bowl and sprinkled a spoonful of milk over the top. Evidence of a hearty breakfast faked, Annie pulled her compact out of her bookbag.
Catching him staring, Annie pasted on a quick, brittle smile. “Mary-Beth says that if I don’t stop pigging out then my cheerleader uniform is going to look disgusting.”
Mary-Beth. Queen Bee of Nick and Annie’s high school and allegedly one of Annie's best friends.
Nick had loved Andrea, whom Annie had been seated next to in kindergarten thanks to alphabetized seat assignments. She and Annie had been inseparable during elementary school. He remembered lazy summer days when the three of them would ride across the pasture surrounding the Stokes’ ranch house and spend hours damming the river or building forts out of brush. He remembered the three of them doing crazy experiments with the chemistry set he’d been given for his tenth birthday and the time Annie singed her eyebrows and then Andrea did hers too, out of solidarity. He remembered Annie and Andrea’s dark heads bent over technics Lego. He remembered Annie’s check-shirted arm slung easily across Andrea’s shoulders as they whispered secrets in the tree-house in which Nick had always been a visitor.
All of that had ended when they went to high school. Annie was only ten months older than Nick, and so they were in the same class although not in the same classes. On the first day of school Annie wore her customary jeans and a shirt. Although she’d always been one of the prettiest girls at elementary school, Nick watched the colour drain from her face at the sea of skirts and dresses and the freshly made-up faces of her classmates. On the second day of school he saw Mary-Beth raise her eyebrows and smirk at Annie’s clumsily applied blue eyeshadow and watched his sister grit her teeth as she realised what the rules of this new game were.
Nick couldn’t place the moment when Annie’s stride became tentative footsteps but he knew it had something to do with Mary-Beth. Mary-Beth who had drawn the new, stylish Annie into the circle of girls that giggled and flipped their hair as the football team walked the halls like teenaged gods. Mary-Beth whose sharp eyes missed nothing and who could elevate or crush her acolytes with a single word.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“Nick, you need to turn left here.” Greg’s voice cut across his thoughts, and he swung into the correct lane. Greg shot him an appraising look.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you with Grissom.” Greg sounded genuinely penitent. “Or to get Sara all mad at you at the thought she wouldn’t get to hang out at the Bellagio with a DB.”
Nick sighed. “I just thought that the women using the clinic might feel better if Sara and Catherine were here rather than a couple of guys all in their business.”
“Kind of like the way they used have women police officers around just for dealing with women’s stuff?” Greg’s voice was carefully neutral.
“I’m not saying that Sara and Catherine are part of a ladies’ auxiliary, Greg.” Nick’s voice was harsher. “Lord knows that they’re smarter than us.”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Maybe equality will be when they’re dumber than us and we don’t think it’s because they’re women.”
Nick shot him an irritated look. “I don’t think women are stupid, Greg. Four brilliant sisters, remember?”
1985 | Dallas, Texas
It got so that Nick saw Annie most often at their lockers between classes. Although the school never put siblings in the same classes if it could help it, their lockers were alphabetized and the two Stokes siblings’ were right next to each other.
That Tuesday in fall, Nick came closest yet to dragging his sister off to a school supply closet and begging her to remember who she really was.
Brian Andrews, a football player so archetypal that Nick almost admired his devotion to the cliché, was leaning against the locker adjacent to Annie’s. He was sharing his views on the changes to the pass interference rule with the only Stokes not to really like football. At the same time he was being laden with the books that Annie needed for homework. The studly and dutiful boyfriend in action.
He looked down at the growing pile and shook his head. “Are you turning into a nerd, Annie Stokes?”
Annie froze and then laughed the light, mirthless laugh that Nick was growing to despise. “For sure I am not, Brian Andrews.” She swatted him with one hand. “In fact, could you give me a couple of pointers on the bio homework?”
Brian smiled down at her as Nick fought the urge to laugh hysterically. His whip smart sister, who had only last week come into his bedroom to discuss Richard Dawkins’ The Extended Phenotype, was asking the dumbest boy in school to help her with studying.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“Actually,” said Greg carefully. “I didn’t know you had four sisters.”
“Yeah,” said Nick, wondering how over-cautious he had become about sharing any aspect of his life with his co-workers. “I’m the youngest of seven. Bill Jr, Beth, Alex, Mel, Jessica, Annie and me.”
“How far apart are you?”
“Twelve years from Bill to me. Eleven months between me and Annie.”
“Eleven months? Your poor Mom.”
“Yeah.” Nick turned the Denali carefully into the Planned Parenthood parking lot.
They grabbed their kits and identified themselves at reception. Nick tried to avoid staring at the rows of women waiting to see a doctor or nurse; tried to give them all their privacy.
“Jesus,” Greg breathed, surveying the scene in the exam room. Their meeting with the clinic director had only taken a few minutes. Then she'd waved them towards one of the four exam rooms and procedure rooms that lined the length of the building.
She had looked weary, rather than shocked and Nick found himself wondering how often this happened. How often she’d received disgusting things in the mail or opened the door to find the sanctity of her workplace violated.
She had explained that the clinic had had to reschedule procedures because the room he and Greg were standing in was out of commission, which was probably what the perpetrator intended.
“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Greg read the bloody, streaking message from the wall. He turned to Nick. “What does that mean?”
Nick pulled his camera towards his face. “It’s from Psalm 139. It’s talking about the fetus.”
Greg’s face wrinkled. “Nick, are you ok with being here? I mean, I know you probably don’t agree with abortion.”
1985 | Dallas, Texas
“And we commend to you, Lord, those women who have sinned in this way. And we ask you, Lord, to bring them to you and to help them understand that they can be forgiven, that all fall short of the glory of God and must be redeemed by your blood. Amen.”
“Amen.” Nick was uncomfortable in the pew between Annie and his Momma and resisted the urge to pull at his collar. Even Pastor Johnson was sweating as the air-conditioning struggled to cope with the unseasonably warm November day. He wished he’d gone hunting with his father and Bill Jr.; indifferent to shooting though he was.
Looking around him, he noticed Andrea and her parents sitting a few rows in front of the Stokes family and glanced sideways at his sister to see if she’d noticed. Annie’s head was bowed, seemingly in devotion. She was as aware as he of their father’s view that women bore the responsibility for family piety and decorum, and years of practice had rendered her performance flawless.
Annie hadn’t spoken to Andrea since last year. Since the day when Annie and Mary-Beth were standing with a group from the football team and Andrea walked past. Sensing an opportunity for cruelty, Mary-Beth cocked her head and looked through her lashes at Brian Andrews.
“What is wrong with that girl?” Her voice was breathy but loud enough to be heard by everyone in the hallway. “She’s such a dyke.”
Nick, collecting books from his own locker, saw Andrea’s head snap up and her look of entreaty to Annie. He saw Annie’s face as the conflicting emotions rolled across it, like a storm across the pasture at the ranch. Looking into the triumphant eyes of Mary-Beth, she laughed unconvincingly. “She sure is.”
If Andrea had been less blinded by tears she might have seen that Annie’s face was frozen as Mary-Beth threaded her arm through Brian’s and escorted Annie's boyfriend away.
Nick wanted to run after Andrea and explain, but he didn’t know what to say. How could you explain someone giving up on what was real to pursue a pantomime?
Present Day | Las Vegas, Nevada
Nick was stunned. “What makes you think I don’t agree with abortion.”
Greg looked discomfited. “Well, I just thought that Momma Stokes would have had you all lined up for church in your Sunday best, hearing about how abortion and gays were sinful.”
“Way to assume, Greggo.” Nick shook his head. “My Momma is a lawyer and she did raise us Baptist but she also raised us with an understanding of shades of grey. I’ve never been able to bring myself to even think I should have the right to tell a woman what should happen to her body.”
He placed a yellow marker next to another group of dismembered kitten parts and took a short volley of photos.
“And yet you’re happy to be told what you should be doing with yours?” Greg’s expression was unreadable.
Nick's shoulders sagged. “That’s not it, Greg. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” Greg’s voice was sardonic. “I’ve never quite understood the theological distinction between you fucking all those women you’re not really interested in and sleeping with a man you might love. So the only kind of sex you’re allowed is the sex you don’t really want?”
1986 | Dallas, Texas
Out of deference to an unwritten but clearly understood code, the boys in Nick’s class didn’t talk smack about Annie. It wasn’t so much that she was Nick’s sister but that she was a cheerleader, and therefore attainable only by members of the football team.
Everyone knew what you had to do to get to wear a football player’s letterman jacket and Nick felt sick when he saw Annie wearing Brian Andrews’. Not because he didn’t like the thought of his sister having sex so much as that she wasn’t remotely happy with Brian. He saw the dark circles around her eyes in the morning before she covered them with the thick makeup all the cheerleaders wore. He saw the reluctance with which she dragged herself to the phone before she put on that fake-cheerful voice to talk to Brian.
He’d come across Brian and Annie once in a corner at a party they were all at. He was holding her arm hard enough to hurt and hissing something about being shown up by her flirting with the quarterback.
“You’re my girl,” he had said through gritted teeth and it hadn’t sounded like romance to Nick as much as an assertion of ownership.
He was about to step forward and pop Brian hard in his stupid square face but the fear in Annie’s eyes and the almost imperceptible shake of her head had made him stand down.
He’d tried to talk to her about it afterwards, but she’d laughed off his objections. She was dating a football player, silly. She was the luckiest girl in the world.
Present | Las Vegas, Nevada
“What’s it to you, Greg?” Nick’s voice was hurt and the barrage of questions had made his head start to ache just behind his eyes. “What do you care who I have sex with?”
Greg looked at him for a beat too long, but Nick had turned to get a swab from his kit and missed it completely.
"Because I'm your friend and I know that you have feelings for guys and I think that you should be able to act on those without feeling you're recreating Sodom and Gomorrah and the Archangel Gabriel will come and smite you."
Nick raised his eyebrows. "I don't feel like I'm going to get smote. Smited. Whatever."
He couldn't explain, he realised. He couldn't explain that it wasn't an old, old book and the possibility of salvation lost keeping him from another man's bed. He couldn't explain that he had lost whatever faith he had because the real world didn't seem to measure up to the nice sermons his Pastor delivered every Sunday. He couldn't explain that the reason he was denying a major part of himself was because he couldn't bear to see the disgust in his Daddy's eyes.
Greg stood, hand on hip, unconsciously echoing the gesture that Catherine had made when getting her righteous on about anti-choice protesters.
"So what then?"
"This isn't what my family want for me." His voice hitched and Greg's face lost its inquisitorial sharpness as he sensed the weight of that explanation for Nick.
Greg looked at the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm being really simplistic and I have no right to tell you how to feel or what your issues are."
Nick nodded his acceptance of the apology and swabbed a pool of blue liquid from the floor.
"It's just," said Greg, hesitantly. "That I want you to be happy. And you're an amazing person who deserves to be happy. And if there's anything, well, you know."
Nick took a steadying breath. "Thanks, Greggo."
He turned his attention to the exam chair in the middle of the room, grin fading. This was the epicentre of kitten carnage and the word ‘slut’ had been written in blood in the middle of the backrest. He positioned the scale and started to get off some more shots.
1986 | near Dallas, Texas
The spring sunshine streamed into the yellow kitchen of the Stokes’ ranch house. Its heat on her skin filled Jillian Stokes with an extra measure of the warmth that she felt as she surveyed her two youngest children. Sprawled over the breakfast table, Annie was reading the newspaper while Nick pored over a copy of Scientific American.
Sipping her coffee, she grinned at the thought that it had been about five minutes since Bill Jr had been sitting at the same table reading an age-inappropriate gun magazine slipped to him by his father, while Nicky sat in his highchair flicking applesauce at passersby.
Annie looked up and caught her mother’s fond gaze. “Momma, is it still ok for me to use your car today?”
The smile left Jillian Stokes’ face. “No, honey. I’m sorry, I forgot I said you could have it but I have some errands to run today. Mrs. Willets is sick and I need to get a whole bunch of things for her locally.”
“I’ve got the truck today,” Nick offered. “Want me to run you someplace?” Nick, having driven for years on the ranch, had passed his driving test a week after his sixteenth birthday. Two weeks later, he was still desperate for opportunities to drive his family around.
Annie pulled the sleeves of her SMU sweatshirt, a gift from sister Mel, over her hands. “I’m just meeting Andrea today in Dallas to do some work on a history project.”
Jillian was collecting things for her purse from around the kitchen and missed the suspicious look that Nick was directing at Annie. Nick waited until his mother had left the kitchen before turning to Annie. “Where are you really going, Annie?”
Annie pulled a face. “If you must know, I’m going to meet Mary-Beth and some of the guys from the team. You know Momma and Daddy don’t really like her.”
“With good reason.”
Annie looked down at her hands.
Nick sighed. “How long will it be til you’re ready? I want to get going as soon as possible.”
Annie shrugged. “I’m ready now.”
Nick couldn’t stop himself looking her over. SMU sweatshirt. Jeans. No makeup. Unstyled hair. He thought she looked fine but he hadn’t seen her leave the house without makeup and hairspray in years.
Pulling in to let Annie out at the faintly alternative coffee shop she’d indicated on the broad Dallas street, Nick was still confused. This didn’t look like the kind of upscale place Mary-Beth frequented.
As he pulled away from the kerb, something made Nick check his rear-view mirror. He spotted Annie leaving the coffee shop and running across the street. A feeling of foreboding gathering in his stomach, he circled the block and pulled in front of the building Annie had gone into. It was a women’s health clinic.
In the four hours it took Annie to come out, Nick had run over every possible scenario for why Annie might be visiting a doctor in secret. He had hoped that she would come out after half an hour with a package of birth control pills in her bag, angry that he had been checking up on her. After an hour and half had gone by he’d phoned his friend Paul to reschedule their study session.
When Annie appeared, blinking, at the front door of the clinic, he was leaning against the truck. She acknowledged him with a tiny nod of her head.
Present | Las Vegas, Nevada
Nick’s careful examination of the exam chair with his flashlight had yielded a possible palm-print, presumably made when the perpetrator leant against it to get purchase for writing on the backrest.
Grabbing a lifter from his kit he smoothed it over the print and expertly peeled it off the surface, sliding the cover down over it.
“I want to thank you for taking so much time over this.” The clinic director was leaning against the door-frame, watching as Nick picked up the ALS wand from his open kit.
“Well,” Nick said, straightening up. “We investigate any crime no matter what we think of the victim, but I personally find it hateful when healthcare providers are targeted by imbeciles.”
The clinic director raised her eyebrows and folded her arms over her chest. “You think we’re healthcare providers?”
Nick shot her a look. “Don’t you?”
She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “I’m sorry. I get so many letters accusing me of infanticide and brutalising women that I start seeing criticism where none exists.”
1986 | near Dallas, Texas
Nick drove them back to the ranch in silence and steered Annie through the dappled shadows of the garden towards the tree-house. Doubling back to the kitchen he filled a bottle with water and grabbed some ice cream and Motrin.
It wasn’t until Nick was unpacking his backpack on the floor of the treehouse, when he wordlessly handed the Motrin and water to Annie, that Annie started to sob as if she would never stop.
When she finally stopped crying, long after the shoulder of Nick’s sweatshirt was soaked through and his arms had started to ache with the strain of holding Annie up, the ice cream was mostly melted.
They ate it anyway, passing the spoon between them.
“I’m not sorry,” Annie said. She had a look of defiance on her face that Nick hadn’t seen in longer than he could count.
“No?” He wasn’t sure whether he thought she should be sorry. On balance, he thought probably not. I mean, what the hell did he know about how this felt?
“And you can’t tell anybody.” This last part was less resolute, and he could see her wondering whether he would tell their parents.
“It’s your secret, Annie.” He paused. “Did you tell Brian?”
She shook her head. “When we first started-“ She waved her hands. “You know. He said that I was responsible for not getting knocked up.” She looked through the treehouse window out towards the river. “I got birth control pills from that same clinic but they only give out a month at a time and I couldn’t always get an appointment when I needed a refill.”
Nick frowned. “What about condoms?”
She avoided his gaze. “Brian said they stopped us from being close.”
“What about ‘no glove, no love’?”
She jerked her head away and it was a minute before Nick's stomach heaved like he'd fallen twelve stories really fast. He fought to keep his voice calm. “You mean he would just go ahead anyway?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Annie paused and Nick saw that she'd started to cry again. “I never said ‘no’ to him. I never said that he couldn’t if he didn’t use one. I just didn’t think he would like it.”
Nick took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around his sister.
Present day | Las Vegas, Nevada
“You know,“ said Nick, as they drove back to the lab with a trunk full of samples. “People think that having four sisters means that you understand shoes and hot water bottles and the proper use of chocolate.”
“And it doesn’t?”
“Well, yeah, it does.” Nick smiled. “It also means that you understand other stuff too.” He hesitated. “I find it really hard to talk about a lot of things, Greggo. But because I trust you I’m going to tell you a little secret story about my sister Annie, by way of illustration.”
“What does Annie do?” Greg's face was eager and Nick reflected on how simultaneously nice and silly it was that he was so excited to hear anything about Nick’s family and Nick's past.
“Dr Annie Stokes is an FBI Agent. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and she aced elementary school and all three of her degrees. High school, however, seems to be the moment when all the bullshit we expect of women comes to the boil and Annie nearly drowned in it.”
Nick glanced at Greg who was sitting still, with a look of dawning comprehension on his face.
“No major drama. Just a bust up with a much loved friend that was totally her fault for shallow, crappy reasons; a controlling and pretty abusive football playing boyfriend; and an abortion, like a quarter of American women have. Typical teenage girl stuff. And yet, it took a while for her to bounce back from all of that.”
Greg bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re some backwoods hillbilly who wouldn’t know a copy of Ms magazine if it hit him in the face.”
Nick waved off his apology. “I know what my accent and my silence on this stuff suggests. But you San Francisco types haven't cornered the market on giving a crap and I think it’s time I started letting you know a bit more about what I care about.”
Greg smiled. “That would be nice.”
Nick smiled back. “So, Annie and I were sitting in our treehouse with her friend Andrea--.