Free With Child by Laurie R. King Page A

relief.
    His interview and confession brought no satisfaction. He was only a cog in a deadly mechanism, grinding on to produce yet more poverty and brutality. He was no killer, yet he killed, unforgivably, his own child.
    Al Hawkin was near the interview room when Kate came out. Waiting for her? He dropped in beside her as she marched away.
    "Al, good to see you. You should be home; you look like hell."
    "How'd it go?"
    "We got a confession."
    "And?"
    "And what? He'll go to prison and get himself a fine set of muscles in the weight room, and when he gets out, he'll find his girlfriend has two more kids by two other men, and everyone will go on beating everyone else, happily ever after."
    "One of those days, I see."
    "Do you ever think, Al, that maybe someone should just sterilize the whole goddamn human race, admit that it was a mistake, leave the planet to the dolphins and the cockroaches?"
    "Often. Let's go get some dinner."
    "I can't, Al. I have to see a man about a car."
    "What kind of car?"
    "A piece of junk, by the sound of it, but cheap."
    "Oh, right. Tony said you'd been having car problems."
    "I don't have a problem now. I just don't have a car. Three thousand dollars to fix it so it won't quit on me - I don't have the money."
    "What's wrong with Lee's?"
    "Nothing. Everything. It's too complicated to go into, Al. And Jon lent his to a friend while he's away."
    "So where's the car you're looking at?"
    "It's just up Van Ness."
    "I'll take you; then we can have dinner."
    "If I'm buying, it's a deal."
    The car proved impossible, too big to park, too shaky to corner, and probably had had its odometer turned back at some point. They went to a Greek pizza house to eat a feta and pesto pizza, and at 9:30 Hawkin pulled up in front of her empty house and turned off the engine.
    "Lee's not back yet," he said after a glance at the windows.
    "Nope."
    "You heard from her?"
    "Short letters. They're in her handwriting, but they're not Lee."
    "What's going on?"
    "Ah, shit, Al, I wish I knew." When he continued to study the side of her face, she sighed and squinted at the house. "She's been getting flaky over the last few months. She said she wants --" She stopped, realizing that she really didn't want to go into Lee's fantasies and desires, not even with Al. "She wants all kinds of things she can't have, in the shape she's in. And she's become secretive. She's never been one to hide anything, but suddenly there were all these things she wouldn't talk to me about - Lee the therapist's therapist, who's always talked over every little nuance, suddenly there were these areas she'd go silent about."
    "Any pattern to them?" asked Hawkin the detective.
    "Any discussion about the future was off-limits. Her future, our future."
    "You think she wants out?" he asked bluntly.
    "I did finally ask her that; she seemed, I don't know, shocked. Desperately unhappy that I'd think it. She's just going through a lot of stuff, I think," Kate said weakly. "Part of it has to do with her job - you know she's dropped most of the AIDS therapy? She hated to give it up, but it was too much for her, after the shooting. She doesn't have any stamina. She's seeing a lot more women now, and kids. I thought it might be money that was bugging her, because we still have heavy bills and she's not earning much, but when I suggested we move, she got really upset. I mean, look at this place. The taxes are unbelievable. She could retire on what it would bring, but she wouldn't hear of selling it - 'Not yet,' she said."
    "It is a beautiful house."
    "I'm beginning to hate it. It's like living in a mausoleum. And that car of hers in the garage - she'll never drive it; she could sell it and buy something with manual controls and still have money left over, but she won't hear of it. Won't even say why, just refuses to talk about it."
    They sat in the cooling car, neither of them making a move to go. Hawkin finally spoke.
    "She may be finding it difficult to choose a future,