Blood Lines

see if he could help."
    'Yeah? He looked like he could use some more sleep. What was he muttering as he walked away?"
    'It sounded like," PC Trembley frowned, "lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh, my."

    Chapter Three
    'Hi, Mom."
    'Good morning, dear. How did you know it was me?" Vicki sighed and hiked the towel up more securely under her arms. "I'd just gotten into the shower. Who else could it be?" Her mother had an absolute genius for calling at the worst possible times. Henry had almost died once because of it or, conversely, she'd just missed getting killed because of that same call-Vicki had never quite settled the question to her own satisfaction.
    'It's twenty to nine, dear, don't tell me you're just getting up?"
    'All right."
    There was a long pause while Vicki waited for her mother to work that last comment through. She heard her sigh and I then she heard, faintly in the background, the staccato sound of her nails against the desk.
    'You're working for yourself now, Vicki, and that doesn't mean you can lie about all day."
    'What if I was up all night on a case?"
    'Were you?"
    'Actually, no." Vicki put her bare foot up on one of the kitchen chairs and massaged her calf with the heel of one hand.
    Yesterday's climb up the tower had begun to make itself felt. "Now, as I was home two weeks ago for Thanks-giving…" Which is going to have to hold you until Christmas . "…to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"
    'Do I have to have a reason to call my only daughter?"
    'No, but you usually do."
    'Well, no one else is in the office yet…"
    'Mom, some day the Life Sciences Department is going to expect you to start paying for these long distance calls."
    'Nonsense, Vicki. Queens University has lots of money and it's not like it costs a fortune to call from Kingston to Toronto, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to see how your visit to the eye doctor went."
    'Retinitis pigmentosa doesn't get any better, Mom. I still have no night sight and bugger all in the way of peripheral vision. What difference does it make how the visit to the eye doctor went?"
    'Victoria!"
    Vicki sighed and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Sorry. Nothing's changed."
    'Then it hasn't gotten any worse." Her mother's tone acknowledged the apology and agreed to drop the subject. "Have you managed to line up any work?"
    She'd finished an insurance fraud case the last week of September. There hadn't been anything since. If she were a better liar… "Nothing yet, Mom."
    'Well, what about Michael Celluci? He's still on the force. Can't he find you something?"
    'Mother!"
    'Or that nice Henry Fitzroy." He'd answered the phone once when she called and she'd been very impressed. "He found you something last summer."
    'Mother! I don't need them to find me work. I don't need anyone to find me work. I am perfectly capable of finding work on my own.
    'Don't grind your teeth, dear. And I know you're perfectly capable of finding work, but… oops, Dr. Burke just walked in, so I should go. Remember you can always come live with me if you need to."
    Vicki managed to hang up without giving in to the urge for violence but only because she knew it would be her phone that suffered and she couldn't afford to buy another new one right now. Her mother could be so… so… Well, I suppose it could be worse. She has a career and a life of her own and she could be after me for grandchildren . She wandered back to the shower, shaking her head at the thought; motherhood had never been a part of her plans.
    She'd been ten when her father left, old enough to decide that motherhood had caused most of the problems between her parents. While other children of divorce blamed themselves, she laid the blame squarely where she felt it belonged.
    Motherhood had turned the young and exciting woman her father had married into someone who had no time for him, and after he left, the need to provide for a child had governed all her choices. Vicki had grown up as fast as she could, her independence granting a mutual independence for her mother-which had never quite been accepted in the spirit in which it was offered.
    Vicki sometimes wondered if her mother wouldn't prefer a pink and lacy sort of a daughter who wouldn't mind being fussed over, but she didn't lose any sleep worrying about it, given that her decidedly non-pink and non-lacy attitudes had no effect on her mother's fussing as it was. While proud of the work that Vicki did, she fretted over potential dangers, public opinion,