Chapter 14
Three hours later, I was returning to Nanny's house with Dad. We were driving back from the Modesto Police Station, and I was feeling emotionally drained. The actual process of what had happened after Dad had talked with Chris, and then with Aunt Fran when she showed up an hour later had been difficult enough. Then they had called the police and had been told to come down to the police station to give a statement.
Poor Chris had been an emotional wreck after talking with Dad, and then his mother. Aunt Fran had been practically frantic and had even asked if anyone had a gun so she could kill the monster that had done this to her son. It was Dad who had remained calm through all this and helped to calm her down. Fran was driving Chris back to Nanny's, something he insisted on forcefully. I knew part of it was that he felt safe around Dad.
At least Chris was going home with family instead of what had briefly been suggested once the Social Worker got involved. I'd expected, no, really I had hoped it would be Mary Lou Hacker, but that was not the case. Instead of the kind, friendly Mary Lou we got Margaret Flores, the social worker who had tried to frame me with the Barringers back in the second timeline. I tried to warn Dad to not let her get involved, but she took him and Aunt Fran to another room to talk to them. A half-hour later she'd summoned me to the same room and started asking questions about the night before. Very quickly it had become obvious what she was trying to do and I'd refused to answer any more questions.
"Mrs. Flores, Christopher is the victim here, not the victimizer!" I'd snapped after she repeated a question for the third time. "Nothing more happened last night than you've already been told and you're not going to find anything else to justify your trying to persecute Chris because he's been victimized by a man!"
"Control yourself young man." The woman had snapped back frostily. "I must have answers to these questions because of the new AIDS Quarantine laws. If you had any sexual contact with your cousin you must be tested and he must be prosecuted for endangering your life! Your father is a pastor so he understands we must stop this sin before it spreads any further!"
"You've asked more than enough questions, Ms. Flores." Dad said in a stern voice from where he was sitting next to Aunt Fran. My blond-haired Aunt was staring frostily at Ms. Flores at the implications against her son, and looked with surprise as Dad continued speaking with disgust very evident in his voice. "You are right, that I am a pastor, but nothing else you just said has any bearing on the reality of this situation. First and foremost, attempting to threaten my son with the AIDS regulations is one of the most despicable things on this planet. Second, threatening to prosecute my nephew when he has done nothing but been victimized is even more damning. You need to be worrying about your own sins, ma'am, because you're stacking them up pretty high right now."
"Just who do you think you are to say that?" Ms. Florez spat back at Dad. "I'll have you know that as a social worker I can order both boys detained under the AIDS quarantine laws."
Dad's quiet laughter shocked both her and Aunt Fran, who had gone pale at the statement by the social worker. I wasn't shocked, but I was fairly surprised that the bitch would go that far in pushing a position she had to know she couldn't support with the actual law. Maybe it would work on people who did not know the new laws the way my father and I did, but with us it was going to backfire on her in a big way. I only hoped Dad would throw the book at her.
"What are you laughing at?" Flores demanded angrily when Dad continued chuckling. "I don't think you'll find it funny when I have your son thrown in San Francisco quarantine!"
"Davey, will you please go find one of the officers and have them come in here?" Dad asked and I nodded. As I got up to follow his request, Ms. Flores stood up and reached across the small table to grab my arm and hold me in place.
"You're not going anywhere, young man." She snarled and with that I got mad. The situation brought back too many bad memories and I yanked my arm out of her grasp. That was when there was an audible commotion from behind the one-way glass on the far wall and before Dad had time to do more than take a deep breath, the door opened with a plain-clothes detective coming into the room. He was middle-aged, balding, and not one that I recognized.
"Everyone calm down here." He said firmly and Dad let out his breath slowly while Ms. Flores glared at me, then Dad, and finally the Detective.
"Detective, under Federal Act 1981-30A I am hereby requesting and requiring that this woman be placed under arrest with the charge of violating sub-section 38-C." Dad said sternly, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. He pulled out two identification cards and handed them to the detective who looked them over carefully while Dad continued. His next words drew a gasp of surprise from the bitch of a Social Worker. "I am a Naval Reserve Chaplain, and a member of the Presidential Commission on the AIDS Quarantine program charged with enforcement of Federal Act 1981-30A. This woman has violated section 38-C by threatening detention under the authority granted by the act without just cause. Any recordings you have of the conversation in this room is hereby to be considered Federal property and you are to hold her in a cell until such time as Federal Marshals can take her into Federal custody."
"Yes, sir." The Detective said with a sigh. He nodded to two uniformed officers who had come in behind him and they moved towards the social worker whose pinched-up face held a look of total shock now.
"You can't do this to me!" She nearly wailed as the officers began to read her the Miranda rights.
"Ma'am, he is a Navy chaplain, and this card here identifies him as a member of the Presidential Commission." The Detective said as he waved the two cards at the woman who paled even further so that her face was now pure white. "I am obliged to inform you that the charges you face come with a minimum sentence of ten years in prison and I'll also remind you that at your request the interviews were recorded. Sir, on behalf of the Modesto Police Department, I'd like to extend my apologies…"
"Not necessary Detective." Dad said with a dismissive wave before taking back his identification. "My appointment to the Commission has been low-key and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Please call Social Services and inform them of what has happened and ask that they send someone else to help wrap this situation up."
"I'll do that." The detective said as Flores was led out by the two officers. Dammit, once again I was finding myself indebted to my father, but it was Aunt Fran who spoke up.
"Could… could Chris have that disease now?" Aunt Fran asked and to my surprise Dad looked to me for an answer.
"It's a possibility, but I seriously doubt it, Aunt Fran." I answered calmly. She relaxed slightly at those words and Dad's confirming nod. "He will have to be tested for the next couple of years, and you'll need to report any address changes to the government, but no one else in the family will have to be tested."
"Don't worry about his name being on the list either." Dad said firmly. "It's private, and won't be released to the public. Davey and I are both on it because we'll be visiting the quarantine centers and the President has asked all members of the commission to submit their names to the list in order to help build up public trust in it all."
"Sandy doesn't like you being on that thing." Aunt Fran said softly before her expression firmed up and she gave Dad a hug. "I'm actually glad that you are."
"Thanks, now let's go see Chris." Dad said softly and led us out and then into another interview room where Chris was sitting in a chair looking very scared. He brightened when we came into the room and rushed to give first Dad and then Aunt Fran a hug. A half-hour later, Mary Lou Hacker had arrived, and I'd had to struggle to not run and give her a hug. As I expected, she had us out of there within an hour and had stayed behind after promising us she wouldn't leave until the search warrant had been obtained, and the man who had been molesting Chris was in jail.
When we'd gotten back in the car, Dad had interrogated me about Ms. Flores and Mary Lou. That had ended up with me telling him the detailed history of how Mary Lou had been the social worker who had taken me out of our home and put me with the Rush family, and then how Ms. Flores had tried to frame me for drug use and put me with a very anti-gay family. He had frowned during the whole story and when I was done, he said the last thing I ever expected to hear from him.
"I'm sorry son." Dad told me softly, and I could see a tear in the corner of his eye. "I know it wasn't me who did those things, who helped to make your life hell in that timeline, but I'm still sorry."
"Thank you, Dad." I said softly and the rest of our drive to Nanny's had been in silence. Now the real fun was about to begin as we pulled up in front of Nanny's house. There were more cars here now, and I recognized several of them as belonging to various family members.
"This is going to be fun." Dad said and I had to smirk at how closely our thoughts were running right now. "Let's see, that's Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Dan's truck. They're parked right in front of Aunt Chris and Uncle Phil's car."
"Meanwhile across the street we have Uncle Billy's car which means Aunt Paula and their two girls are here." I said with a big sigh.
"I thought you liked Uncle Billy." Dad said with a curious look on his face. "You spent a week with him during the summer of 1980."
"I remember that week even though it was nearly fifty years ago for me." I said with a frown as Aunt Fran pulled up behind us. "Remember how I use to walk around without a shirt on before I went?"
"Not really." Dad said with a shrug and I let out a sigh.
"Well, anyway, I got up one morning and didn't put a shirt on right away." I said with a half-smile. "Aunt Paula had a fit and yelled at me for nearly two hours and she refused to let me eat breakfast or lunch. Uncle Billy had gone to the base so he didn't hear any of it at all."
"Now that makes me mad." Dad said firmly. "You may think of it as fifty years ago, but it was just last year for me."
"Dad, let it go." I said as Aunt Fran and Chris got out of her car. "It's old news and my distaste is for Aunt Paula. I haven't even mentioned yet how much I don't get along with them. I guess it would be in five years from now, Laurie once suggested that her and I should go out to Papa's garage in the back yard and have sex. I turned her down, saying we were cousins and she pointed out that Uncle Billy's her step-father and we're not related by blood."
"Okay, that's enough of future memory time right now." Dad said with a frown. His lips were curved upwards though, and I knew he wanted to laugh. It was funny, really. We had a big family and there wasn't any part of this family that didn't have its little secrets or scandals and somehow I'd gotten to know almost all of them in my first life. "You know, my mother is going to be so pissed that I haven't even gone to visit her yet."
"Oh please." I said scornfully as I opened the door. "You know it'll just give her one more thing to gripe about and she's not happy unless she's griping or putting someone else down. Just tell her all about this and she'll be happy for at least a month with being able to criticize this part of the family and gossip about the scandal."
"Son, sometimes I hate it when you're right." Dad said as we opened the doors and got out. Aunt Fran was waiting with her arm around Chris's shoulders. My cousin was fourteen, but right now he looked about eight, and scared of what was ahead. I didn't blame him, because I knew just how nasty our family could get. The fact that even more had been assembled, and that as much as Nanny preferred sticking her head in the sand or ignoring problems in the family, she also liked to gossip, which guaranteed that she would have shared the latest news with all the family.
Sure enough, when Mom answered the door I knew things weren't going to be too pleasant. She had a grim expression on her face and seemed a little surprised to see Chris with us. When she didn't say anything before going back into the house I knew it was definitely going to get worse. Without a word, she led the way into the living room while Aunt Fran closed the door behind us. None of my cousins were present in the room, but it was full with all the people who were there.
Uncle Billy, my Mom's step-brother, sat on the couch next to Nanny, who was joined by Mom sitting on her other side. Aunt Paula was nowhere to be seen, as was Papa, which meant they were out with my other cousins, getting them out of the way. Uncle Billy was a shorter man, no more than five-seven. He had yet to get the beer gut he had later in life, and his hair was pitch black instead of salt and pepper. Right now, he was sixteen years into his enlistment with the Air Force where he was a communications specialist. Nearly every year he would spend the summer in Turkey working on NATO communications during annual war exercises and was one of the top experts in his field. After his retirement, he'd join the Guard and continue as a civilian in that field, making damn good money. In the armchairs were my mom's stepsister Christine and her husband, the giant Uncle Phil.
Uncle Phil was nearly seven-three with broad shoulders and a relatively lean frame. Like Dad, he was a Baptist preacher, although considerably more conservative. Right now, he was the pastor at a church in rural Washington state and he had three kids with Aunt Chris. Today he was dressed in slacks, dress shirt, and a tie. He'd been childhood friends with my Dad and Mom, and I vaguely remembered living in Florida as a kid where they were the only family in the area. Aunt Chris, with her blond hair and warm, caring eyes seemed as tense as Uncle Phil as they looked us over.
Sitting on two chairs brought in from the dining room were Aunt Priscilla, Mom's oldest natural sister (Fran was the middle child born to Nanny), and her husband Uncle Dan. Uncle Dan was tall as well, as tall as his wife at six-one, and was already balding. He had always been a quiet man, a stutterer, but generally decent. In fact, he was too decent for Aunt Priscilla whose major interests were in accumulating money and spending it on new clothes, new shoes, and new cars. He made good money in the oil industry near Bakersfield, but she'd eventually divorce him after running up too many credit card debts for even his salary to pay. Both of them looked like they'd rather be anywhere else than here, listening to this discussion. With a quickness I'd come to expect, a vague memory hit me that during this time Aunt Priscilla had just entered her Pentecostal phase of religious worship and could be expected to break out in tongues or call on Jesus to cast out the devils at any given moment.
Nope, this was NOT going to be a fun at all!
"You guys are back." Nanny said a little too loudly, betraying her nervousness. Her eyes skipped over Christopher quickly and locked on me before speaking again. "Davey, you come sit over here by me. Fran, grab some more chairs from the dining room."
"Let me get them." I said quickly, earning myself another frown from Nanny. I knew what she was doing by wanting me to sit next to her. She was trying to split me off from whatever had been planned for Christopher, Fran, and Dad. To my surprise, Chris went with me while Fran and Dad stood near the entrance to the living room looking like they were facing an inquisition.
"I don't want to go back in there." Chris whispered to me as I grabbed two chairs and he did likewise.
"Chris, you're never going to get anywhere by hiding." I told my cousin as quietly as I could. "You're not going to be alone. I'll sit next to you."
"Okay." Chris said as he took a deep breath and we moved the chairs into the living room. As I'd promised, I took a seat next to him while his mother sat on his other side with a grateful nod to me and Dad sat on my other side. Nanny frowned at the 'disobedience' my action showed to her, but said nothing.
"How did it go downtown?" Mom asked quietly while everyone stared at the four of us as if we were guilty of some High Crime or Treason.
"It went both well and bad." Dad answered with a shrug. "A stupid, opinionated social worker tried to use the new Federal AIDS Act to intimidate Davey. I put a stop to it quickly. The… person responsible for all this is being arrested as we speak. They took Davey's deposition but they don't think he'll need to testify if this goes to trial. There's a good chance the pervert will plead guilty with the case that's being built against him. Thanks to Chris coming forward and giving the details he did, they're going to find plenty of physical evidence that will put him away for a long, long time. If he takes a plea deal, he'll get at least twenty-five years before he is even eligible for parole. Should he be stupid enough to go to trial and Chris or any of the other boys are forced to testify, they're going to push for life in prison and I believe he'll get that. Chris did a good thing today."
"Why did he have to do it all?" Nanny said bitterly, and with a hint of anger. "He could have just kept his mouth quiet and then we wouldn't have our neighbors know we have one of them in our family."
"What do you mean one of them?" I demanded harshly and could see the look of surprise on the face of everyone in the room.
"You watch your tone young man!" Mom snapped angrily at me.
"Sorry, Nanny." I said in a calmer voice. They were right, I was physically twelve and rudeness to my elder family members was inappropriate. "What did you mean, Nanny, when you said 'one of them'?"
"You know damn well what I mean." Nanny spat back angrily and from the looks of disgust on the faces of most people in the room they also felt as she did. My family had never been one of the most accepting families in the world. "Now everyone is going to know we have one of those disease-infested queers in the family."
"What makes you think Chris is a homosexual?" Dad asked with a firmness in his voice that seemed to surprise Uncle Billy and Uncle Phil. Uncle Dan just raised an eyebrow at Dad's defense of Christopher.
"He… he…" Nanny started to say but faltered.
"He had sexual relations with a man and other children." Uncle Phil spoke up in his booming voice when Nanny didn't continue. "At the very least, he's a sinner with a lot to atone for, at the worst he's one of those homosexuals who are being locked away right now. If he repents and returns to the Lord, he might be salvageable."
"How dare you say that about my son!" Aunt Fran shouted at Phil with outrage and half rose from her seat. Chris grabbing on to her arm for comfort stopped her, and she turned to shelter her son who now had tears in his eyes.
"It is the truth." Aunt Priscilla said in what could only be described as a dreamy tone of voice. She was rocking in her seat and I had to suppress a groan because she was about to go into a fit. Sure enough she started babbling nonsense, earning her nothing but amused glances or looks of horror from everyone. When she stopped, she opened her eyes with a smile that quickly soured at the look from Uncle Phil. He obviously did not want any more 'help' from her. Whatever else her 'fit' had done, it had calmed down everyone's temper for the moment. Chris was back to sitting uprightly, trying to imitate my pose. As for me, I was sitting with my back straight, arms at my side, and head held high.
"I won't have one of those diseased queers in my home endangering the lives of my grandchildren!" Nanny said firmly with a nod of her head to show her determination.
"How dare you!" I said loudly and somewhat firmly. My words, and the vehemence behind them shocked everyone except for Dad who shot me a warning look. I would have to thank him for that because it calmed me down enough to continue with less vehemence, and without saying something that would have driven the family further apart. "Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like that. Still, Nanny, I think you're going a little over the top here. Chris was molested; he was victimized just as any woman who has ever been raped is victimized. Unlike a woman who is raped just once, he's been raped many times, and he's been manipulated, coerced into doing it over and over again."
"The man who did this threatened to tell Jim that Chris was a queer in order to keep him quiet." Fran added softly with a hurt look in her eyes. Aunt Chris had flinched at my words, for good reason. It wasn't something I was supposed to know yet, but she'd been raped in high school. That had been something she'd had to work with Uncle Phil on, something she struggled to overcome and her husband reached out to take her hand in his. Her eyes told me that she at least was coming to an understanding. When she looked at Christopher there was a hint of compassion in her eyes. "Chris wanted to tell someone but he was afraid Jim would kill him if he found out."
"So he waited until after my son stopped him before he could draw him into that trap too?" Mom said in an outraged voice. That surprised me because the only way she could have known that was if she'd listened to me talking to Dad earlier today or Chris talking to Dad.
"You should be happy that I'm mature enough to not only say no but to figure out the cause and do something to put a stop to what was going on." I countered my mother's statement and was pleased to see Uncle Billy nod a little bit. Nanny and Mom both looked at me frostily though while Aunt Priscilla looked down her nose at me. I'd disliked the woman ever since the first timeline when she'd blamed me for my mother's death. The fact that later in that timeline she'd also taken advantage of Nanny and Papa's advancing Alzheimer's to clean out their bank accounts and accrue nearly forty thousand in debts against their house didn't help either. "You're trying to mix apples and oranges here and it's not going to help this family, or Chris. Pedophilia and homosexuality is not the same thing."
"They go hand in hand with both being perversions." Uncle Phil countered and I settled myself in for a long debate. He and I had gone around and around on this in the first lifetime and I knew what buttons to push with him. Not buttons to set him off, but buttons to make him think.
"Uncle Phil, the issue we are looking at in this family, right now, is pedophilia." I started carefully, trying to delineate the argument. I would never win with him, or most of the people in the room right now, if we went on and on about homosexuality. Pedophilia was a different matter entirely and I was going to make the best of this chance. "A pedophile is someone who preys on children for sexual gratification. The only impact homosexuality, or heterosexuality has on pedophilia is that the victim will be male or female depending on the orientation of the victimizer. Whether the victim likes boys or girls is not relevant because the pedophile will go after them based on his or her orientation. Let's not forget here, pedophiles can be women as well. It's just that in this case a male victimized several little boys. It is not the boys' fault they were made victims by this man. How many of you here in this room would be having this conversation right now, or feeling the way you do if the victim had been Shantill? Aunt Priscilla, what if it had been your daughter Tracy, or Heather? Uncle Phil, what about your daughter Pepper? Uncle Billy, what if it had been Amy or Laurie? Nanny, what if it had been Mom? Would you be acting this way towards them or are you doing it because Chris is a boy?"
"That's not fair." Mom said firmly. "It's not the same."
"What if it had been Jenny that had been molested?" Dad said in a voice filled with pain, and for a moment I almost shuddered. Dad HAD molested Jenny in my first lifetime. He knew that too, in this timeline, and I had to wonder at the pain, and the honesty that made him say that. Mom glared at him for a long moment as if she suspected something from him, and then she let out a shudder of her own.
"It's still not the same." Nanny said weakly, but all the adults in the room were thinking and they were thinking hard.
"What was done to Chris is not his fault." I continued softly, trying to keep any hint of anger out of my voice. "He should have been able to tell his family no matter what this man tried to trick him into believing, and I know Aunt Fran is going to beat herself up about that, but right now we're proving to Chris that part of what this man said was true, that part of the manipulation the pervert used to keep a hold on Chris was accurate. We're showing Chris that his family WILL reject him when we find out about this dirty, dark secret. How can we expect anyone to come forward and stop this abuse if we're going to sit in judgment of them and kick them out of our homes?"
"We are supposed to be good Christians." Dad added. "Yet, we're sitting here like some court of inquiry judging Christopher's worthiness to be a part of this family. We are condemning him for the sins of others, proving to him that what he was told by the man who committed these sins on Christopher's body was right all along. Are we so blinded by the plank in our eyes that we can see nothing but the splinter in the eyes of others?"
Oh, Dad was on a roll here. He was invoking Matthew, Chapter Seven and from the look of surprise on most of their faces, they got the message clearly. That was one thing about my family; you didn't have to quote chapter and verse in order for them to know what you were talking about. All you had to do was get it close and they'd pick it up from there.
"Neither do you throw pearls before swine." Uncle Phil retorted easily and Dad locked gazes with him.
For the next hour the two men argued back and forth using bible verses to make their points. It was a discussion so typical to this family, yet not one that people who had not spent their lives growing up in churches could have followed easily. Dad took the lead early on when he forced Uncle Phil to go outside the four gospels for a verse to support his position. By the end of the hour, Uncle Phil had retreated to the Old Testament for the support of his argument, and Dad had switched back to Matthew Chapter Seven to end the discussion.
Without saying it directly, Dad had managed to chastise the entire family for their behavior in this matter. Even Nanny was looking regretful of her earlier condemnation of Chris, and my cousin was looking up at my Dad with what seemed like near hero-worship. Nanny's statement after Uncle Phil had conceded to Dad's argument showed we had more ground to cover though.
"Okay, you're right about Chris." Nanny said at last. I almost let out a sigh of relief but her next words stopped me. "At least God has finally taken action and sent his disease to wipe out all those perverts."
"How can you say that Monta?" Dad said with a sigh of his own.
"God did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah." Uncle Phil leaped into the discussion, sensing a weaker position that would be harder for Dad to defend. My uncle did not like to be bested on theological grounds, especially not by my Dad who he considered to be a weaker theologian. "Their sins were the same as those being committed by the homosexuals, prostitutes, and drug users that this disease is affecting."
"These are only the first part of our society to be hit with the disease." Dad said firmly, settling back into his chair. "Davey, how about getting some water for everyone?"
"Okay." I said carefully and pulled Christopher along to help. That was because I wanted him to give glasses of water to several people in the room, and I wanted to see if they were really listening or if they were just putting up a face. If they took the water from him without flinching, I'd rest easier.
"Well, with these smart measures the President is taking, they'll be the last." Uncle Phil said and I could still hear him clearly as Chris and I got glasses from the cabinet and filled them with ice water.
"Not necessarily." Dad countered. "Many of our sailors visit ports where this disease could be spreading right now, and they could bring it back to their families. Preliminary data from Africa is showing contamination is largely in the normal communities, being passed between men and women. This disease is not a judgment by God but rather a warning of the dangers of not adhering to his commandments. If it were God's wrath, it would not be able to infect the innocent. Nurses wouldn't risk getting it every time they gave a sick person an injection. When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he gave those who believed in him a chance to escape. He only punished those who failed to follow his commandments. Lot's wife failed to do so and was also punished. Lot and the rest of his family were not touched. When God visits his punishment on the wicked, he does it in a way that the innocent and the true believers are not affected. With AIDS, everyone is at risk, not just the homosexual or the prostitute. It's nothing more than another disease to hit this world. That's the bad news. The good news is that by following God's commandments, we can greatly reduce the risk of getting the disease. A man who does not have sex with anyone but his wife, who also does not stray from her husband will not bring this disease into the home. Staying away from drugs, especially those that require the use of needles will keep our children safe."
"How can you believe that?" Mom said with anger in her voice. "I've read those same pamphlets that the White House sent you when you got appointed to that commission. Good people, doctors and nurses can catch that disease while treating those people and you're going into those same places. Not only that, you're taking Davey with you! You could get your son infected by that damn disease or you could bring it home and infect everyone else!"
"Mom, if you'd really read those pamphlets instead of throwing them down after a paragraph or two you'd know that wasn't true." I said sharply after finishing handing out the water and sitting down. None of the family members who Chris had handed a glass to had flinched, which I took to be a good sign. Mom's words were infuriating though, because they showed how even someone with access to information about AIDS could close their mind off. "Transmission of the virus that causes AIDS requires body fluid to body fluid contact. Neither Dad nor I, nor anyone else in the world can catch it by shaking hands or giving someone a hug."
"What if one of them spits on you?" Nanny demanded sharply, her voice rising into an almost-whine. "One of them perverts is just as likely to spit on you, infect a good-looking red-blooded American boy like you. If you get stuck in a room alone with one of them, they'll try to do what that pervert did to Chris except they'll give you that disease too!"
"First of all, spitting on me won't give me that disease." I countered after taking a deep breath. There was something about arguing with family that always got the blood running hot instead of the cool strength I was use to in arguments. "They'd have to rip open a vein and spray me with their blood, and even then there's no guarantee they'll give me the disease. The blood would have to hit an open cut, or get in my mouth and find an open wound there in order to infect me. Even then, there's a chance my immune system will fight off the virus. Nurses get it mostly when they are careless and stick an infected needle into their hand. Medical procedures are being changed as we speak so that nurses aren't required to re-cap needles after usage. This disease is impossible to catch when you follow the guidelines that have been published."
"Plus Davey won't be alone in a room where one of the patients could attack him." Dad countered as well. I'd have said something else, but I wasn't going to contradict him here and now. Wait until he actually saw one of these wards and I was sure he'd change his outlook on a few things. For now, though, he had come so far that I wasn't going to push any further. "If for some reason I'm not with him, then a soldier will be. It's important for him to see things like this, and to learn how to express compassion and Christian love to those who need it more than anyone else."
"Do you think you could arrange for me to go as well?" Uncle Phil's question caught not only Dad off-guard, but me as well. >From the betrayed look Nanny shot him, she didn't like it at all, and the concerned look on Aunt Chris's face made her opinion very clear.
"I don't see why not." Dad said. "There are supposed to be absolutely no restrictions on who can visit. In fact, the government wants to encourage family members, friends and the clergy, to visit the sick and dying. As Christians, it should be our first duty to be bring love and compassion to these men along with God's promises."
"Not his condemnation?" Uncle Phil asked with a slight smile that said he was teasing. At least he understood Dad's unspoken message that condemnation would not be tolerated.
"Phil, honey, you don't have to go in order to prove a point." Aunt Chris said and my eyes shot up slightly at that little revelation. Most likely this had been a topic of discussion before we'd gotten back.
"I'd like to go as well." Uncle Billy said. "Do you mind if I get a ride with you and Davey? Paula will want to go to her mother's on Christmas Day."
"We're not going until the day after Christmas." Dad said softly. "We can go through Sacramento and pick you up."
"You do know it's not on the way there?" Uncle Billy asked and Dad actually laughed.
"I know, and an extra two hours to pick you up is no big deal." Dad countered. Nanny frowned again, realizing her opposition had just been drowned out. Priscilla was just frowning at everyone.
"Chris, we'd better get going." Fran said as she stood up. "We have some shopping to finish today."
"We'll see you tomorrow." Dad said as he gave both her and Chris a hug. I also gave them a hug, and was followed by everyone in the room except Uncle Billy (who never gave hugs), and Uncle Dan (who also never gave hugs). Even Nanny gave him one, albeit a little stiffly, but a hug nonetheless.
It was becoming commonplace for my Dad to surprise me in this timeline, and I had towonder how much different my last timeline would've been if I would have shared with him that I was a time traveler. Here he had stuck up for Chris when before he'd have been one of those condemning him, and whereas in both previous time lines he'd called AIDS God's Judgment on Homosexuals, here he was debunking that line of thought. Not only all that, but he'd managed to help the family come closer.
"Well, we'd better go say 'Hello' to my mother as well." Dad said as he stood, giving me a pointed look.
"I need to help Mom bake some pies." Mom excused herself from the trip to Grandma's. I wish I could. No one in any of my lives could bitch the way Dad's mother could bitch. You could hand her a hundred dollars as a gift and the first words out of her mouth would be a complaint that it was wrinkled, too dingy, or maybe too crisp. No matter what you did, she'd gripe, bitch, and moan.
She was also famous for giving gifts and then asking for them back at some point later in the year.
"Are you sure you need me to go?" I asked Dad in a whiny voice and he laughed before pushing me towards the door.
Nope, I wasn't getting out of this one… maybe I could spend some time with Ms. Flores. It certainly would be a lot easier than dealing with a Grandmother who was growing more and more pissed by the minute that we were spending all our Christmas holidays with Nanny and not her despite the fact that she lived just around the corner.
Maybe I'd just tell her I didn't want to visit because she bitched too much.
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