113: What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Being in production on the miniseries didn’t mean people were on set and behind cameras all day every day. Producing a scripted show is more like making a movie than the rather freewheeling way we worked on the live talk shows. I could see why so many TV networks were going to talk and ‘reality’ shows. Two entire cable stations had grown up around broadcasting music videos and they were insanely popular. We were in the studio for about five or sometimes six hours to produce a one-hour talk show. Each hour of the miniseries would probably cost us forty hours of studio time, not including time between shots, editing, scripting, rehearsing, etc. It was a different world.

Each morning I continued to work with the kids, first in the kitchen and then in the silo. It was quite a sight to see every kid in the village who could walk troop over to the studio at five o’clock in the morning. The bigger kids helped the little ones and we all had a cooking lesson and breakfast. We had some interesting breakfasts that even included spaghetti and meatballs. Then we would head out to the silo about six. The kids all knew that when we finished in the silo they could run to the outdoor showers and play for a while. The older kids all looked out for the younger.

I was walking out to the studio with the three kids from the big house when I saw Melanie out by the fence petting a horse. It seemed awfully early for our resident teen to be up. She turned toward us when she saw Ellie and Leslie leave the barn duplex. I waved her over and she came as I sent the kids in to get set up. The Swifts came from the village and Sarah came from the bunkhouse. By the time Melanie got to us, Henry was running as fast as he could to catch up and slipped into the studio with the other ten.

“What’s going on?”

“The kids come to have breakfast with me in the morning and learn to cook,” I said. “You are welcome to join us.”

“Seriously? With a bunch of children?” Just then Judy rounded the corner of the barn and headed toward me. She gave me a quick kiss.

“I woke up early,” she said. “I think it’s the heat. Decided I’d come and join the kids for breakfast before we work out.”

“I didn’t know there were any other teens on the ranch!” Melanie exclaimed. She immediately turned to introduce herself to Judy. I decided to back out and let Judy handle this on her own. Granted, Judy was still the shortest clan member on the ranch, but I thought Rees actually looked younger. I wondered what Melanie would think when she met the residents of the bunkhouse. I supposed that we should have a fire and officially welcome her to the ranch, but I was waiting just a little longer.

“Papa talk!” the kids said as a chorus. And that’s what I did. Melanie and Judy pulled up stools with the other kids and Matthew came around the side of the counter with a big bowl of bread dough. He began shaping it into loaves and putting it in bread pans. It would be fresh and ready when we finished working out.

“That was a really great meal last night,” I said, just as if I was talking to Rhonda. The kids had really gotten into the fact that I never spoke directly to them while we were at the counter, but rather to La Madrina. “What was Dani thinking when she made such a big kettle of goulash? It was so good, but there was such a lot left over. I brought it over to the kitchen and I think I’ll show the kids how to make a frittata with it.” I saw Melanie lean over to whisper a question to Judy and saw her grin at me as she whispered back the answer.

“There must be something about the heat this morning. Both Melanie and Judy are up early and came to join us in the studio. You should come over if you want some of this frittata.” I talked through the process of cooking the frittata. One of the things that I’d done ever since Matthew first came out to the kitchen and listened to Papa talk, was not hold back or censor what I’d say to Rhonda in my little talk. I glanced at Melanie and decided to go ahead and plunge in.

“I talked to Papa Rex yesterday. His contact in Chicago says things are set. Sly and Lily are in agreement. The thing is, I need to know if Mel is serious. It could break her sister’s heart if we brought her down here and Mel didn’t really want her here. From what Rex has told me, Stephanie is a sweet and innocent child who misses her sister. He thinks the brothers will be fine. Their mom isn’t a bad person. She seems to have much the same opinion that Mel had when she got here. It’s just the way the world works. She was suspicious at first, but our lawyer convinced her that this would be a healthier environment. I’m concerned, though, that we don’t have any other kids their ages here at the ranch. We might need to do some recruiting.”

I was blind-sided. Melanie hit me from my left so hard I almost lost my grip on the big cast iron skillet of frittata. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight.

“You’d do that? You did it? You’ll bring my baby sister here? Mama Lil and Papa Sly will never have to worry. I’ll take care of her. I’ll make sure she does her schoolwork and helps with the house. She can stay in my room. The bed’s so big we can share it. I’ll do anything. Please say you’ll bring Stephie here.”

“If it’s truly what you want, Melanie, Sly and Lil have had guardianship papers drawn up and your mother has agreed. They’ll take you up to Chicago this weekend to collect Stephanie.”

“Why are you people so nice? Why would Mama Lil and Papa Sly take us in like this? They were, like, retired and everything. And they’re willing to take on two kids? Why? How can we trust you all?” I held the sobbing teen and tried my best to comfort her. She’d come a long way in the past two weeks, but she was still adapting to life at the ranch, the rules, and living with Sly and Lily. Rhonda and Samantha got her involved in the production right away, making sure she understood that she was on payroll and they weren’t just trying to keep her busy. Of course there was some of that. But Sly had taken her to the bank and made sure she had both checking and savings and a cash card she could use for personal expenses. Mostly, that amounted to gas for her little car and she wasn’t driving much other than to explore a little.

I decided maybe it was time to expose Melanie to some more of the ranch.

“Judy, would you lead the kids in forms this morning?” I asked. “I think I need to collect Papa Sly and go visit Lexi.”

“Sure.”

“Daddy wants to visit Lexi,” Matthew said. “I’ll go get him.”

“I’ll get Grandpa Sly,” Ellie said. “We’ll be right back, Judy.” The two older kids took off at a run to get Doug and Sly.

“Now, the rest of you guys finish eating this frittata and tell me what you think. Is this a good way to use leftover goulash?”

Sly took Melanie’s hand and Doug leaned on my shoulder as we made our way out to the River of Life. The last round of treatment had really taken it out of Doug. Since the lymphoma had come back so quickly after remission and he didn’t respond right away to the next round of chemo, the doctors decided to go straight to radical treatment. Doug had been in the hospital for several days in June as they did a bone marrow transplant. It was the same type of procedure Angela said they were experimenting with at The Hutch. The procedure is basically three steps. They harvested about two pints of bone marrow from his pelvis and breastbone and froze it. They put him through six days of high dose chemotherapy and then whole body radiation. It’s a wonder the treatment didn’t kill him. Then they had to infuse the harvested bone marrow back into his bones since everything there was dead. He stayed in relative isolation for almost three weeks before he was allowed to come back home. It didn’t surprise me that one of the first things he wanted to do when he got home was go visit Lexi. He was bald and thin as a rail. I knew if I needed to, I could carry him.

“Take your shoes off, sweetheart,” Sly said gently to Melanie. “This is the River of Life.” She saw the other three of us taking off our shoes and complied. We stepped into the River and each took a rake. Doug and I moved to one side. He hardly had the strength to hold the rake, but moved it back and forth a little. We listened to Sly talk to Melanie.

“You want to know why Lil and I would take in you and your little sister. You’ve gotten to know my daughter Samantha through the production meetings. I think we’ll all have dinner together tonight. Samantha, Rhonda, and Brian are what is known in the clan as cónyuge. They are life mates. You’ll find out more about the various lifestyles on the ranch. Just understand that you are safe with us and no one will ever try to get you into something you don’t want,” he chuckled. “And if you do want, they’ll try to discourage you.”

“I heard some of them are nudists. That’s a little freaky, but I guess I understand it,” Melanie said.

“I’ve never introduced you to my younger daughter, Alexandra. That’s why we’re out here. This is where her ashes are scattered.”

“Oh my god!”

“This is her stone. She was only nineteen when she was taken from us six years ago. We all come out here on occasion to rake the stones and find our peace.” They stood in silence for a minute. I could see Melanie had tears on her cheeks. We didn’t make a big thing about our history any longer. There were seldom ever pilgrims now. It was just our memorial area like it was intended. Gamma House still brought each year’s pledge class out to the River as part of their friendship tour. Otherwise, the University had pretty much relegated the shooting to ancient history. We moved on.

“Don’t think we are trying to replace her,” Sly went on. “It couldn’t be done. My heart breaks a little each time I come to visit. But maybe the fact that we had a beautiful daughter and lost her makes us more willing to help other girls who need our support. Lexi was always helping someone. Judy and Amber practically lived with us for a while after the shooting. They were Lexi’s best friends. We supported each other. Now Lil and I ... we want to offer you and Stephanie a safe place to grow up and be successful young women. That’s why we’ve invited you to stay with us.”

We just sat and let the peace of the River wash over us.

“I’m Doug, by the way,” Doug said. “No one bothered to introduce us. I understand you joined the breakfast crew this morning. I’m Daddy to Matthew, C-Rae, James, BD, and Claudia. And Raven, but she’ll just be one this weekend and hasn’t joined the breakfast crew yet.”

“Wow! Why do you come out here? Was Lexi your friend, too?”

“She was. But now ... Don’t tell my wives, okay? Lexi and I are dating.”

“You’re... ?”

“I’m thinking I’ll probably move in with her sometime soon. Not too soon, I hope. But it’s coming.”

Melanie’s mouth fell open and I hugged my co-father.

Sly, Lily, and Melanie went to Chicago Friday afternoon. Saturday afternoon, they returned with Melanie’s sister, Stephanie, and a letter of consent from their mother to grant guardianship to Sly and Lily. They already had temporary guardianship of Melanie based on her work and temporary residence at the ranch. On Monday, they would go to the court in Bloomington and file for permanent legal guardianship. I say permanent, but it means until the child turns eighteen. I remembered what Mom and Dad had to do to get permission for Rhonda to live with us. There was a lot more that went on than I understood at the time.

There was a schedule for visitation and Sly and Lily were actually paying for Ms. Dennis to come to the ranch for a visit every three months. She was welcome at any other time, but had to pay her own transportation if she chose to visit more frequently. Personally, I thought that was pretty generous since other than visitation rights, Sly and Lily had pretty much all parental control and responsibility. The girls’ mom paid no support, the Cortales family bore all responsibilities. I had to really admire Lily and Sly all over again. Sly could still be pretty scary, but he was a great father figure for the two girls.

Rhonda, Sam, and I had dinner with them Saturday night. I cooked in their kitchen and had it ready when they got home. I thought it was all going well until Lily opened the subject of school.

“Patrón,” she began. That was never a good sign. Both younger girls wore quizzical expressions. I’m not sure they’d heard that term before. “We need to take care of school enrollment for the girls and would like your input. School starts in the district on the 23rd. We need to get registration complete and handled if either Melanie or Stephanie will be enrolled in public school. We’ve already made arrangement for Melanie to be enrolled in Corazón Academy, even though it will primarily be the same as home schooling. Mrs. Whitaker has agreed to see that Melanie’s lesson plans are complete and on schedule. Dr. James will be her progress monitor.”

“Dr. James?” Melanie interjected.

“You met her briefly at a production meeting,” I said. “Courtney is the woman who wrote the computer software that we use for editing video. She also handles our Internet presence.”

“She’s, like, so young!” Melanie said.

“Well, she’s just a little older than I am,” I laughed. “However, Dr. Lennox has also agreed to assist Cassie, that’s Mrs. Whitaker, in establishing your curriculum. Cassie specialized in elementary education with a focus on language arts. Brenda focused on mathematics. Courtney majored in computer science. Your three teachers are probably more qualified than most of the teaching staff at the high school.”

“And having that arrangement is necessary for you to work on the show,” Rhonda said. “We promised we would get you through high school while you are working for us. We plan to keep that promise.”

“The question is whether Stephanie should also go to Corazón Academy or if she should be enrolled in fifth grade at the township elementary,” Lily said. “I wanted to bring this up while you are here, Patrón, so we are all in agreement and it doesn’t appear that we are forcing our preference on Stephanie.”