Consequence was her middle name. Lane thought that everything was a big deal. Her husband, Jake, did not. Unless law enforcement was involved- because he’d been afraid of the police since childhood- Jake didn’t think any situation warranted the raising of a voice or a serious conversation. Lane thought Jake was a bit of a slow learner. Therein lay the crux of the arguments for the past three and a half years.
The consequences' names were Benji, Stella, and the Baby who everyone called The Baby. Lane and Jake had met as two young-ish 30-somethings at a bike shop that was also a bar in Boulder Colorado. They had all the little things in common, enjoyed each other’s company for a few months, and then found themselves on the double-lined side of a pregnancy stick. They decided to go for it, scrambled to put their lives both together and in order, and by the time things felt just the tiniest bit settled, they found themselves in the exact same predicament for the second time. At least for the encore, they knew each other’s middle names.
When they were both surprised about Baby Number Three the following year, their friends wondered if their alma matters shouldn’t rescind their degrees.
“You guys are idiots,” Lane’s best friend offered helpfully.
They, well, they weren’t. At least in the non-baby-making parts of their lives, they were both pretty on top of things and successful. Lane had her own business as an interior designer and Jake ran a busy restaurant in town. They both liked bars and tequila and, obviously, each other. They’d had the three mistakes, sorry, kids in four years and Lane was definitely feeling the pressure of it all. Jake was much, much less affected by their chaos. He was chill. He didn’t seem to mind the Cheerios embedded into the rug or the glitter slime hanging from the ceiling. Lane didn’t know this about him before she got pregnant and was irrevocably tied to him for the rest of their lives. If she had known about his more lackadaisical tendencies, it wouldn’t have necessarily been a deal-breaker, but it would have been nice to have had the heads up.
Perhaps it was all his years in the service industry. Jake seemed immune to chaos. The baby could be screaming bloody murder, the toddler could be smearing his own poop across the wallpaper, and Benji could be welcoming an entire extended family of raccoons into the kitchen and Jake would ask, in the calm voice of a yoga teacher, while stirring a pot over the stove, if the family would prefer cous cous or rice with the salmon. Lane reached her boiling point on The Baby’s first birthday.
She’d been trying to wean him. Her boobs had been a 24/7 diner for the past three and a half years, and she craved having her body back to herself. The Baby didn’t like this idea. Lane was also learning that there wasn’t only an isolated phase called the “Terrible Twos” as a parent but also the “Terrible Threes” and that she, herself, felt like she was stuck in the “Terrible Thirty-Eights.” Also, the house needed a new roof that she and Jake were in the throes of discussing how to pay for, and, well, it was 2022 and they’d been locked inside their log home for a bit too long. It was cabin fever, it was her body being used as a hotel and restaurant, and it was this perfect storm of finally getting to know the man she’d married and had three children with. One could argue that this was long overdue.
The chaotic afternoon coincided with a gorgeous Fall day. Lane felt desperate to get out of the house. Jake was making lasagna. It was a process. When he was cooking, his chillaxed trance was even deeper. It was like stirring eggs into the ricotta mixture made him stoned. Which, he also might have been. But that’s not the point. The point is, it was an incredible day outside, a tornado of kids and mess and hormones and anxiety inside, and Lane was on the verge of losing it.
“Just go for a walk,” Jake shrugged from his noodle-layering.
“A walk?” Lane loved the idea of a walk. She wanted to feel the warm sun and cool breeze on her face. She wanted to put in her earbuds and stroll along the side of the park where the deer grazed. But, this experience wasn’t an option. It hadn’t been an option since Benji learned how to crawl. Nothing, not even the simple concept of ‘taking a walk,’ had been easy.
“Yeah, let the two older kids ride their bikes. Just go. When you’re back, dinner will be ready.”
The fury that boiled in the pit of Lane’s stomach would have shamed an active volcano.
“Oh yeah, easy-peasy,” the venom dripping out of her mouth could have conceivably poisoned Jake’s pasta dish.
“Stop making everything such a big deal,” He didn’t even look up. He was spreading the ground beef with the concentration of The Karate Kid following Mr. Miyagii. It was very important.
Lane didn’t even respond. She pulled the tricycle, the big-kid bike, the stroller, the dog leash, a few water bottles, a handful of granola bars, the diaper bag, and two helmets out of the garage. Nothing was easy. She tied up her running shoes and told herself that all she really needed was some fresh air and one other thing that she would never, ever admitted out loud. And that was that Jake’s lasagna already smelled amazing and her stomach was growling with the thought of eating dinner.
Because she had to, Lane made a bigger deal out of loudly getting the kids ready, calling the dog, and making The Baby a bottle.
Yeah, she thought to herself. Everything was simple if you weren’t the one doing it. Truth be told, Lane was so grateful that Jake was a gem in the kitchen. She hadn’t made dinner since she peed on that first plastic stick in utter disbelief. So many people that she knew in the service industry were totally burnt out of the kitchen when they got home from work. But not Jake. Standing in front of their stove, chopping, sauteing, whatever it was that people did to prepare meals, was actually his happy place.
Walking through their neighborhood and passing the park was, of course, a very slow process. There were shoelaces to tie and caterpillars to inspect and Bunny, their big, white, fluffy Samoyed, was on high alert, zigzagging across the quiet road, dragging Lane and, in turn, the baby stroller, on a hunt for an invisible animal that had left behind an intoxicating scent.
The Baby had recently discovered the game that would push any tired parent over the edge: throwing the bottle onto the pavement and then screaming until it was retrieved. It seemed to take half an hour to get their caravan a block from their house.
Honestly, thought Lane, the knot in her stomach loosened just a bit, how lucky are we to have gotten this house? The neighborhood was as quiet as you could hope for. The houses were all built in the 90s and faced a large expanse of fields and a park that you could get to through a gate two streets away. Most people had kids, didn’t lock their doors, and the traffic was more strollers and tricycles than cars. Lane didn’t have to stress about Benji and Stella riding in the middle of the road or letting Bunny out to the end of the leash. It was quiet, and peaceful if you ignored the children’s bickering and The Baby’s bottle-throwing. Lane took a deep breath, allowing herself to close her eyes, feel the sun on her face and the cool breeze on her arms, just as she’d been craving. Unfortunately, that moment didn’t last long.
The pain that shot up through her right arm ended up being a minor dislocation. This is because Bunny finally found what she’d been hunting. It wasn’t their neighbor’s daschund’s pee scent, no, it was a deer. Bunny was usually pretty chill with the wildlife around them. They didn’t live in the woods, just in a suburban neighborhood in Colorado. But the park went on for acres and the deer liked to stop there and idle in the migratory pattern before the winter set in. There was a family of three: a baby deer sprinting on wobbly legs, a doe, and a big ‘ol daddy deer with antlers that Lane had no interest in wrestling.
“Bunny!” she screamed as all 60 pounds of fluff took off like a bat outta hell, rocketing towards the family of hooved creatures.
“STAY WITH THE BABY,” she screamed to Benji and Stella running faster than she had since she’d met Jake. Poor Bunny, she usually had good judgment. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to chase any kind of wildlife, especially not a family of deer. But animal instincts are real and she could not help herself. She careened towards them, her body speeding a few inches in front of her legs, with Lane running after her, screaming for dear (haha) life.
“BUNNY! BUNNY! NO. STOP! BUNNNNNYYYYY!”
Lane felt herself burst out of the casing of her mom body. She could barely hear the barks of her dog or the yells of her children as she sped towards her fluffball on a rampage. It was only a minute, maybe two before she caught up with her pup, painfully gasping for breath, her quads on absolute fire, her heart threatening to explode out of her chest. She grabbed for the loop of the red leash and watched the deer family bound off into the trees, looking back only momentarily to let Bunny know that they'd won.
Hunched over her knees, trying to slow her heaving chest, it wasn’t the kids voices that forced Lane to look up. No, it was someone on a megaphone. That’s right, an electronic megaphone.
She raised her eyebrows and straightened her body. There, next to her three kids, were two police cars with all of their available lights flashing. The cop on the megaphone also had one hand on The Baby’s stroller.
Holy fuck, thought Lane, am I about to be arrested for child endangerment? Could they take away my kids? What the hell is going on?
It's not exactly like police presence was common in their little neck of the woods. People left their doors open and kids camped in backyards in the summer. Lane jogged back down the street, Bunny at her heels, clocking that none of her kiddos were crying and that everyone was in the same number of pieces that they’d been in when they left the house.
“Officers-” she tried to push the word out, but her lungs were not cooperating. “The kids are fine. We live… right…” It was all that Lane could do to squint and point at her brick house, only a block away. She swore she could still smell Jake’s lasagna in the oven, that’s how close they were.
“Does your dog have a history of chasing wildlife, ma’am?” Huh? Thought Lane, there is no way that this is about Bunny… is it? By the unsmiling look on the cop's faces, she realized that it WAS. Seriously? Was this really happening? Lane was speechless. The kids just stared at her. The baby looked like he was going to throw the bottle and then thought better of it. Now, it didn’t take long for her neighbors to walk out to their porches and stick their heads out the windows of their own houses, curious as to what could possibly force this level of commotion on their quiet street.
“No. Not usually. She just took off. But I got her. The deer are fine.” Lane tried to show a stern warning to Bunny. But Bunny was on a new mission: lying on Lane’s feet and licking her private parts. It was an uncomfortable scene.
“We’ll need to see your driver’s license,” said the deputy who looked like he was young enough to still be on his parent’s health insurance.
“My ID?” Lane gestured to her bike shorts, indicating that she had no pockets and no wallet.
“I’m just- I was taking my-” Lane gestured to Benji on his two-wheeler, Stella on her tricycle, The Baby in his stroller, and the dog grooming herself at her feet. She thought her intentions were pretty obvious. “We live right there. We were just,” it was too much. Everything with a young family was such an ordeal, even trying to walk two blocks on a beautiful day in a tranquil residential neighborhood was a thing. Lane couldn’t help herself. Her voice broke with the tears of a woman who was teetering pretty close to the edge. “I was just trying to TAKE MY FAMILY FOR A WALK.”
One might think, based on the obvious nature of the situation, that Lane was released with a warning to keep better control of Bunny. Maybe she would even get a ticket and be forced to pay a fine for the accidental transgression. No.
Lane’s entire family, their bikes, and The Baby’s stroller were all loaded into the two police cars, lights flashing, illuminating the homes and reflecting off of their windows. Even Bunny was shoved into the backseat of the cruiser. They drove less than one hundred yards away. Lane couldn’t even begin to imagine what her neighbors were thinking. This was going to make an interesting story at the next HOA meeting. But this was a much bigger deal than a cocktail party anecdote.
The deputy and his officer drove maybe five miles an hour, down the block and a half until they reached Lane and Jake’s home. The lawn, strewn with kid’s toys that the couple were too exhausted to pick up, looked like a crime scene as the blue and red whizzed across the plastic pieces.
Jake, startled, looked out the kitchen window to see his wife, children, and dog paraded down their driveway on what seemed like a very serious perp walk. And remember, law enforcement was the only thing that really rattled Lane’s husband.
It turned out that these officers were taking Bunny’s offense really, really seriously. Poor Lane was scheduled for a court date, told to get an attorney, and her boss was not happy about the possibility of having an employee booked in the local newspaper for a misdemeanor. The situation did, however, light a real fire under Jake’s ass. He called his college roommate, a lawyer in town, and has petitioned and argued on behalf of his wife for the past five months.
The judge was understanding, mostly, and agreed to a fine and a year and a half of dog-training classes. And dog probation, which neither Lane nor any of her friends had even known was a thing.
Since that day, Jake has not asked Lane once to take anyone for a walk. And he hasn’t said a thing about the legal bills.
He does continue to make his lasagna.
Sweet Dreams
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