“I don’t want it, Kalik. I want my child to have twofathers. You and Ahmed will both be the father, and bothbe the Uncle. What about that,...Kalik?”“I don’t know, Heidi. It could be difficult. You may haveto choose between us.”My heart was twisting sideways in my chest as I saidthat. We were happy so far, and we had never openlydiscussed the idea that Heidi and Ahmed now seemed tohave a relationship that ran as deep as Heidi and myself.But I was being. Having earned only a C-, she was going to have to return to school next year and repeat the course. It’s a shame because I do like Katie. She’s always been nice, but she’s very inattentive, which led to some bad test scores, and she does not complete homework.I heard a knock at my door and I walked over to answer it. It was Katie. She did not have an exam this period and she dropped by to check on her grade. I sat her down to give her the bad news.“Katie, I’m sorry. You came up a little short. It didn’t seem like a problem of funding with the Americans but more an expression of projected trust in the host nation to take care of such problems. It was a bureaucratic stupidity that gave us some hope of cracking the final lines of defense around the supposed hard targets.I don’t think Leanne had even read most of the reports and considered them just so much “garbage” to be gotten rid of.It was beginning to look like my handlers were relaxing their negative thoughts about me, at least. Mom kept washing. Slowly, I raised her skirt and followed it up with my other hand. Not a word. No invitation but no rebuff. Gingerly, I touched her leg.“Careful,” Mom cried, startling me. “It’s sore, today.”I was touching the ‘new’ bruise, the nonexistent one.“Sorry, Mom. I’ll be gentle.”Mom didn’t say a word as I began my ‘massage’. I caressed Mom’s thighs while she slowly washed each glass, moving back and forth between legs. I held her skirt high so I could see what I was doing and also.