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A teenage babysitter decides to go to college.
A single parent places her child in daycare.
A three year old is mistakenly given to a stalker by his pre-school teacher.
The Perfect Solution is a suspenseful analysis of choices and how those choices affect the people around us. It entertainingly highlights the misguided parental trust and negligence in the childcare system.
Enjoy interviews with the main characters.
“Austin”
Yanking his coat
from the back of the wood slated chair and practically tipping it over with the
momentum of his movements, Austin Sanchez practically ran out of the
detective's office. Outside of the door, he angrily pushed his arms into the
sleeves of his smoke gray leather jacket and jabbed the 'down' button of the
elevator.
"Doctor Sanchez." The detective poked his head out
of his door. "Don't forget that you have to remain in town. Until your son
is found, you are unfortunately considered a suspect."
"I'm not about to forget that too soon." Austin
answered in a flat furious tone. He stepped into the elevator and stalled the
door's closing by putting his foot in the doorway. "Just keep my name and
number close at hand; you may want to put it on your list as a murder suspect
before the night is over."
"Listen, Doctor Sanchez, don't do anything you’ll be
sorry about," Warned the detective, pointing his pen towards Austin.
"You'll find yourself right back up here and not sitting comfortably in my
little office."
"Never fear, if I do anything, I can guarantee you I
won’t be sorry." He jabbed his
finger into the button that closed the door.
Shaking his head as the doors closed, the detective
empathized with Austin's feelings. What a hell of a way to find out you’re a
father. He had seen and heard a lot of things during his years as police
detective, but this was a new one. To never know that you are a parent and then
to get the knowledge when your child is missing had to be a horrendous blow to
both your ego and your sense of righteousness.
Remembering the shocked look on Austin Sanchez's face, he
had no doubts that the man knew nothing about the child's whereabouts. As a
matter of fact, he had been afraid he would have to call the paramedics. The
poor guy had looked like he was about to have a stroke.
"Man, what way to find out you are a father," The
detective repeated out loud. Slipping his arms into the sleeves of his coat, he
too left the building.
Unknowingly echoing the detective's thoughts, Austin stepped
from the elevator and walked out of the police station. He was so pissed, the
words swirled around in his head at such a rapid pace, he could barely think.
If it hadn't been for the fact he was dead tired from spending the past
eighteen hours between two different surgeries, he felt as if he could drive
straight to Catrine's apartment and beat the life out of her. But then again,
he was really tired. He needed a shower, a bottle of extra strength aspirin and
a cup of coffee.
From the moment he had gotten home from work and heard the
message on his answering machine telling him to report to the detective's
office or face the possibility of being arrested, Austin had thought that there
was nothing left in the day to shock him. Finding out he was a father and being
accused of that child's abduction, had definitely taken him on a trip to
another dimension. He recalled each step of the visit with each step he took
towards his car.
******
"Come in Doctor Sanchez."
The detective ushered Austin into the cramped little room
and directed him to a slate backed chair at a long wooden table. Shutting the
door, he sat opposite of Austin with his arms folded, rocking back and forth on
the rear legs of the chair. He studied Austin as if he were staring at a
specimen under a microscope. Then, without uttering a word, the detective let
the chair fall back on all four of its legs, the sudden thud startling in the
quiet room. Tapping the unsharpened end of his pencil on the table as he
studied the notes in front of him, the detective repeatedly hummed a couple of
tuneless notes.
Austin, assuming that this was another form of police
psychological torture, nervously glanced around the small room. It was a mess.
The clutter made him fill slightly claustrophobic. Shelves, floor, and table
were packed with files, office equipment, and other office paraphernalia. There
was barely enough room for him to move. Breathing slowly, Austin strove to put
on the face of extreme confidence. After all, he had done nothing wrong. He had
stolen nothing. No one had died on the operating table while in his hands and
he owed no one any money. So what was the problem? Why had he been called here?
He could feel himself slipping into the Black man's sense of injustice and
fear. No matter how professional a Black man became, the idea of dealing with
the law could put mortal fear into his soul.
Examining the tips of his manicured nails and then the tips
of his well shined shoes, he waited for the detective to stop the tuneless
humming and speak. When the humming stopped, Austin thought he was about to
learn the reason for his summons and he sat up straight, but he was mistaken.
He watched the detective with a burning anger as the man tossed the useless
pencil, pushed back his chair and moved away from the table, crossing the room
to the coffee maker.
"Would you like a cup of coffee, Doctor Sanchez?"
"Why not, I guess I have nothing to lose by taking a
cup." Deciding to get the show on the road, he employed sarcasm as his
tool. "Maybe after that, you will tell me why you requested my company.
Unless you called me here because you were lonely."
"No." The detective returned to the table and
placed one of the cups he was carrying, in front of Austin. "Loneliness
doesn’t happen to be one of my problems. As a matter of fact, my problem is
really your problem." He took a sip from his cup.
Copying the detective's moves, Austin irritably took a drink
from his coffee. The damned little detective was working on his last nerve.
Having to sit at the beck and call of a White man made him want to return to
his belligerent, defiant, and ignorant days in the Hood. The gulp of scalding
coffee brought his control into focus and he coughed in annoyance. Slamming the
cup on the table and spilling a few drops in the process, he then mimicked the
detective's rocking movements.
"Doctor Sanchez where is your son?"
"What?"Austin let the chair's legs fall back to
the floor with a bang. "I don't have a son. If you called me in here to
badger me about some unknown child, then I'm afraid you called in the wrong
person." Austin stood to leave.
"Do you know a Catrine Nechelle Teddi?"
"Yes," Austin answered hesitantly before he turned
and gazed doubtfully on the detective. "I haven't seen her for a few
years, though."
Pointing to the empty chair with an ink pen, a sure sign
they were now getting to work the detective resumed his interrogation.
"When was the last time you saw your son?"
"I have never seen my 'son', because I don’t have
one." Austin getting more irritated as the moments passed emphasized his
response angrily as he ran his fingers through his hair.
"From what Ms. Teddi has told us, you do. The child is
three and a half." He picked up the sheet of paper. "He was born on
the twentieth of September."
"What?" He resumed his seat slowly, staring at
detective in astonishment. "You mean you're telling me that Catrine had my
child and she didn't let me know?"
"Is that what you’re telling me?"
"Yes."Austin covered his mouth in shocked disbelief.
"How could she do such a thing? Isn't there a law against that or
something? How can a woman keep the knowledge of a child from its father and
there not be a law against it? Wouldn't that be like kidnapping or
something?" He stared at the detective, but did not really see him. His
mind, desperately trying to assimilate what it had heard, refused to take in
anything else.
"Have you and Ms. Teddi had an argument lately?"
"I just finished telling you that I haven’t seen her in
a few years. I'm talking about over four years, here."
"Four years," The detective repeated the words in
disbelief. “So you're trying to tell me you don't know where the boy is."
"He's missing? You brought me here, tell me about a
child I have never seen and then you tell me that he is missing. Am I going to
be considered a suspect? Wait a minute; I am a suspect, right" Austin
stood in agitation and paced the room. “Do you think that I took him?"
"Sit down, Sanchez." The detective stood and put
his hand on his hip. His solid stance and the hand nearest the gun in his
holster intimidating as hell and Austin sat."The mother reported the child
missing and we always check with family members, first. You are not the only
one we will question."
"I just can't believe this." Austin shook his head in stupefaction.
“Catrine had my child and didn’t let me know. Do you have a picture of my
son?" He looked across the room at the detective.
"No, an officer is on the way to meet Ms. Teddi now to
get one." He sat back down. "I
won't be able to keep you too long, but I do have a few questions that I want
to ask you. I want to ask you a few questions about your activities throughout
today. So sit back and calm down."
Taking a deep breath and picking up the cup of coffee so his
hands would be occupied, he had spent the better part of the past two hours
sitting in that hard bottomed slate backed chair, repeatedly answering the same
questions until he thought he would burst with anger and frustration.
"Listen, I don’t know how differently I can answer you.
I have never seen him. I have already told you the same thing repeatedly I have
no ideas about an abduction. For all I know the child is not even my son."
He had stressed the statement. Losing all patience, but to
no avail. The questions continued. Do you know Catrine Teddi? Where does she
live? When was the last time you had any
contact with her? How long have you known her?
Do you think she would harm her own child? The same questions, the same
answers except for the one that he had no answer for. Why had Catrine kept the
boy a secret?
Angrily striding through the parking garage without a glance
to his surroundings, Austin walked past his car and huffed irritably when he
had to turn and retrace his steps. Pushing the button that activated the engine
of his car, he cursed extensively when the car protested with an irritating
grinding squeal as it was thrown into the wrong gear.
"When I get to my apartment and take a shower, I'm
going to call Catrine," he promised himself aloud as he restarted the car.
"I should just pop up at her house. I still remember her address. Hell, I
should. It took me damned near a year to stop driving past there. This time, I
will be damned if I just pass by."
Fifteen minutes later, Austin was parking his hunter green
Chevrolet Crossfire near the door of his apartment when he noticed a police car
sitting across the street and cursed again as he slammed the car's door.
"When I get close to Catrine it will be nothing
nice," he muttered aloud. "First, I get the humiliating visit with
the police and now I have a police car sitting outside of my apartment,
watching me as if I’m some common criminal."
Running up the stairs and opening his apartment door, Austin
immediately went over to the telephone and punched out Catrine's number with
the tip of his middle finger, cracking the nail with the force of his anger.
"Same number," he grumbled when he heard her voice
on the machine. "I bet the girl is still driving that dangerous little
sporty Jaguar, and with my son in it, no less."
Barely able to restrain himself from voicing his anger and
frustration, he left a brief message on her answering machine; he let out an
utterance of irritation which sounded more like a growl before slamming down
the receiver and began to strip for a shower. Standing rigid under the water
and hoping that the soothing drops would calm him, he closed his eyes and
turned his face to the stinging hot spray. As the water ran down his cheeks he
let himself remember the last night they had spent together.
Over the years that they had been apart, he had dared
himself to even bring her name to memory. It had hurt him deeply when their
relationship ended and his male pride refused to let him go crawling back.
Until the day Catrine had thrown him out of her life, he had not realized just
how much she had meant to him. He’d felt as if he would die and had spent many
days on the verge of tears. For a man of his years that had been a new
experience. He had walked around his apartment with barely enough energy to
move. He couldn't concentrate. A terrible thing when you are a surgeon.
Finally, he had run to his mother like a wimpy little woman and cried on her
shoulders. He told her how clinging Catrine had become. How much the girl
wanted him in her life and how much the idea of living with someone frightened
him.
"Tin," his mother sat on the sofa looking up at
him in barely disguised amusement. She patted the palm of her hand on the
cushion next to her
"Honey, sit. You’re hurting my neck. What with me
looking up at the ceiling and swinging my head to follow you as you wear out
the carpet with your incessant pacing; I may never be able to use my neck
again." She laughed and patted the spot again when he scowled.
"Honey, if you cared that much for this girl, why in the world did you break
up with her? She sounded like a dream to me."
"What are you talking about, Mom? Didn't you hear what
I said? This woman believed that she
owned me. Every time I turned around, she was there."
"You mean she stalked you," his mother stated,
tongue-in-cheek, almost laughing when he threw his hands in the air.
"No." He stood back up. "No, I mean it was
like we were never apart. She was just always there. When I got off work, I
went to her apartment or she came to mine. When we could, we ate lunch together.
She was just always there, washing dishes, clothes, cleaning the apartment,
cooking, relaxing...Mom. Mom, stop laughing this isn’t funny. I just felt… I
don't know."
"Loved? Wanted?"
"No, trapped." he sighed in disgust. "Mom you
think this is funny but it isn't. No matter what I did she never trusted me.
She was always thinking that I am messing around with someone else."
"Was she seeing anyone else?"
"No. As a matter of fact I'm the only one she
ever...why am I having this conversation with you? I'm going to Dallas' house.
He and Houston are watching the game on television."
"Yeah, you do that. Your brothers could probably help
you a lot better than I can. I think that sometimes you forget that I am a
woman. And as such I can understand how this girl feels. If I caught your
drift, you're the only person this girl has ever slept with, right?" She
continued when he put his head down and studied the circle he was making with
the toe of his shoe and didn't answer. "Just that fact would make the girl
very emotional. She.... Uhm, what's her name?" His mother stopped in mid sentence.
"It doesn't matter. I won't be seeing her again."
"Right," She scoffed in disbelief. "If it
doesn't matter, tell me her name. Would I like her? How old is she? Where does she live? How long have you been seeing her? Who are her parents? And she doesn't sleep
around, huh? She sounds like a winner to
me."
Austin looked at his mother dubiously.
"Mom, don't worry about it. I'll be fine."
"If you answer a few of the questions I would be able
to give you an answer.”
"That's okay Mom. Let it pass. I'll be back." He
walked backwards to the door.
"Fine, go talk to your brothers. Just don't let those
chauvinistic macho older brothers make you feel or do something you'll regret
later in life. Let them make you wimp out of your true feelings. Make you
believe you are whipped or anything. I know how men get when they’re together.
You know I always tell you guys you can tell me anything. This time I think you
may have to do this on your own. Maybe even think with your heart and not your
head."
He opened the screen and stepped onto the porch. "Yes,
Ma’me I will." He turned and
almost ran to his car. Laughing to himself as he got behind the wheel.
Old habits die hard. His could mother always make him admit
more than he wanted. Just by sitting and listening. She had never made judgment
on them for whatever they had done. She had let them do it to themselves. Using
subtle questions, knowing smiles, and well-placed remarks, they had always
known how she felt about an incident and what their responsibilities were.
During the many more conversations he and his mother had
while he was visiting, he never told her how much he missed seeing Catrine's
smile and hearing her tell the corniest jokes. Nor did he tell her how he
missed the conversations he and Catrine would have after making love.
And she, as his mother, never dug too deep. She just fed him
delicious home cooked meals and sat near him when he was at his lowest. For the
two weeks he lived in her house, moped
around, and welcomed her comforting words until she had booted him out and
ordered him to go back to work with the promise that his heart would heal and
he would live. Austin hadn't believed his mother's words just like he hadn't
believed that the last night with Catrine would really be the last.
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