“Oh, baby.” Laughed Jim. “We should have an early dinner and an even earlier night, now go, while you can.”
Tasha was pulling up outside the house when she heard another car coming up the drive behind her. She smiled at Bobby and Abby as they came into view while she was taking a sleeping Connor from his car seat. She pressed the fob to lock the white, top of the range, Range Rover she drove, another gift from Jim, but this time chosen together, based on her safety, and Connor's as her main passenger.
“Hello, you two. Are you playing hooky?” She climbed the steps to the front door and let them in.
“That unfortunate boy looks seriously like my brother when he's sleeping.” Bobby grimaced, possibly not realising that he was grimacing at his own appearance as well as his brother’s as they looked very alike.
“Then he's a very lucky boy.” Smiled Tasha making Bobby laugh and shake his head.
“You two are sickeningly happy, but I'm happy for you both.”
Tasha lay Connor down in his bassinet and entered the kitchen where she made coffee.
“It's nice to see you both but I’m guessing there's a reason for you being here together instead of somewhere else, together.” Grinned Tasha, making the other two laugh at her observation.
“Cut to the chase, Tasha.” Abby looked at Bobby, silently urging him to speak.
“This is not to say it's our turn for the big family Fourth of July thing, is it? I don't even know what that entails,” she told them as panic rose in her.
“No, no.” Smiled Bobby. “It's us this year. I wanted to speak to you about your dad.”
Carrying the coffee back to where they sat on the sofa next to Connor Tasha looked nervous. “My dad?”
“Yeah. I have a friend in the D.A.'s office and he thought we might like the heads up on this; there has been some communication from your government representatives to ours about having your father shipped back home to serve his sentence. Your mother has engaged the services and support of a charity that are suggesting that she, as an innocent in this, is being punished by him being imprisoned over here. She is actually now classed as disabled I believe.”
“I don't know what to say, Bobby, and I don't think drunk, apathetic and alone makes her disabled.” Tasha sat down on the coffee table opposite him with a perplexed expression. “Will they go for it over here?” She tried to untangle then order the multiple thoughts and questions queueing in her head.
“I would,” he told her bluntly. “It may be viewed that he is not the U.S.'s problem and that England should foot the bill for his incarceration. His intended victim, you, isn’t even an American citizen.”
“I suppose you can see their point, and I think our prisons would be an easier ride than yours. Could they cut his sentence?” Tasha sounded genuinely scared.
“He could apply for an appeal or a review of his sentence I imagine.”
“What about the injunction?”
“Injunction?” Bobby was confused and struggling to keep up with his sister-in-law’s flitting thoughts.
“Jim took them out when I was in the U.K. and when he was first arrested over here. Would they still be valid and what about Connor, could he come near Connor?” Tasha was becoming tearful and genuinely distressed making Bobby regret doing this without Jim's knowledge or presence.
“Hey,” soothed Abby, moving over to sit next to her friend and sister-in-law. “I think you may be getting yourself upset over nothing here, right Bobby?” Abby gave her husband the perfect cue to continue.
“Abby's right, Tasha. We're talking about the possibility of your dad being sent to a prison, a maximum security facility I would guess for someone convicted of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He's not being released. In the event he is ever paroled or released then you could apply for a restraining order under Californian law, although he’d struggle to legally gain entry to the U.S. with his criminal record. I just wanted you to know in advance because sometimes, when there is a public interest aspect to these things nobody knows until it hits the news-stands. Are you okay? Do you need me to call Jimbo?” Bobby was worried about his young and clearly shaken sister-in-law and knew his brother, although guaranteed to be pissed about this, might be the only one to calm her back down.
“I'm fine, it’s just a bit of a shock. I wasn't expecting it. When he was sentenced I thought that was it, done, but now it may not be, but I'm okay. You don't need to call Jim. I'll tell him later so he may call you for specific details.”
“That's not a problem,” replied Bobby as Connor began to cry.
The baby sounded distressed, properly distressed as though frightened. Tasha turned, startled by his unusual cry and wondered if he'd had a bad dream, assuming babies had dreams. Tasha picked him up and comforted him, held him close to gently kiss him while whispering tender words to him.
Watching them, Abby smiled up at her. “I was really worried about you becoming a parent so soon and you being so young, but you're a natural.”
“Thank you,” replied Tasha. “It all came as a bit of a shock if I'm honest, but he's very easy to love.” She rocked Connor gently until he drifted off to sleep again.
“Hey, don't keep him all to yourself, Auntie Abby would like some love too,” the other woman cried, holding her arms up to receive the little boy.
By the time Jim arrived home Bobby and Abby had left and Tasha was calmer about the information her brother-in-law had delivered, not that she wasn’t still struggling to know how she felt about things, she was. The idea that her father might be given the opportunity to return home, to the country of his birth didn’t worry her, in fact, she thought she might prefer that to him remaining in the U.S. Although her nightmares had continued to decrease over the last few months, she still found herself waking from a dream where her father was standing over her with some frequency. She knew once she woke up that her dream was just that, but she still found it disconcerting and unnerving to think he could find her and break in if he were able to escape from prison. However, if his prison cell was in the U.K. he would be too far away to make her nightmares a reality. It was ridiculous, she knew it was, but she couldn’t quite shake that fear.
She was bathing a yawning Connor in his own bath that contained a sponge cut out that allowed him to lie safely in the water, floating while she washed him and talked to him from her position kneeling on the floor.
