The Living Room (16 page)

“You should be a character in a book someday,” Amy said.

“If that happens, I don’t want it to be an inspirational romance novel. I want to be in a murder mystery. Everyone thinks I get killed, but I come back in the final pages to take my revenge.”

Amy chuckled. “One of your other clients will need to write that one. I’d make you the man who finds true love after searching in vain in all the wrong places.”

“That last part wouldn’t be fiction. Talk to you soon.”

ten

T
he night before she returned to work, Amy lay in bed with her eyes open and stared unseeing at the ceiling. The law firm culture was familiar to her; she wasn’t venturing into the unknown, but she couldn’t shake a sense of apprehension at what lay ahead. She prayed a brief prayer, turned onto her side, and fell asleep.

And went to the living room.

The familiar walls enveloped her with peace, and Amy entered the place of rest where she wanted to stay forever. Eventually, she felt herself being pulled away. When she did, somber words echoed from the breathing walls and surrounded her:

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

Amy woke up. It was 3:05 a.m. She slipped out of bed and climbed the stairs to the writing room. She didn’t know the exact location of the verse she’d heard but quickly found it with the help of a concordance. She turned to the passage in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and read it several times.

The intensity of the message was similar to the way she received the titles for
A
Great
and
Precious
Promise
and
The
Everlasting
Arms
.
But there was an added sense of foreboding that troubled her. The verse fit precisely with Ms. Burris’s challenge that she let her light shine in the darkness, which made Amy wonder if it had anything to do with her writing at all. She sat in her chair as the inner debate went back and forth. She reread the verses from 1 Peter chapter 1 about the flowers of the field. Which would it be? What direction was the Lord leading her?

Turning on her laptop, she typed in a large font on a fresh page:

DEEDS OF DARKNESS
A Novel
by
Amy Clarke

Seeing the title, Amy felt a strong desire to start writing well up within her. The feeling confirmed her decision.
Deeds
of
Darkness
would be her next novel.

Every book consists of random words placed in a new order, but when the concept is right, the creative process is a journey of discovery, not a laborious effort. Naming the book was the first step. Where it would go, she didn’t know. How she would get there, she wasn’t sure. But in her heart, Amy knew the words she’d heard in the living room would be the foundation for her next novel.

Jeff was out of bed and preparing a hot breakfast before Amy came down for a cup of coffee.

“Don’t spoil me with a fancy breakfast,” she said as she stirred in cream and sugar.

“I will today,” Jeff replied. “You’re a working woman.”

Amy leaned over and kissed Jeff on the cheek.

As she waited for her coffee to cool, she debated whether to tell Jeff about her dream. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings by excluding him, but it didn’t seem right to launch into something that serious so early in the morning.

After giving instructions for the day to a sleepy Megan, who would be watching Ian, Amy went out to the garage and started her car so it could warm up. Back in the kitchen, she packed a salad for lunch and put it in an airtight container. Eating out every day was a quick way to knock a big dent in her salary, and she’d already committed to Jeff that she wouldn’t do it more than a couple of days a week. That way she wouldn’t feel guilty if she occasionally brought home Chinese or fast food for supper.

Amy poured a fresh cup of coffee in a travel mug and checked herself again in the downstairs bathroom mirror. At least she had a short commute. It would have been harder to drive a long distance to report for duty. Less than ten minutes later she reached the law firm. There weren’t assigned spaces for the staff, but Amy often parked near a massive oak tree. Pulling into the familiar spot seemed the right thing to do.

Inside the office, the young receptionist was turning on her computer and looked up with a wide-eyed expression on her face.

“Oh, I brought my copy of your book to work,” she said, reaching into her purse and taking out a copy of
A
Great
and
Precious
Promise
. “I had no idea who you were when you came to see Mr. Phillips. I mean, you told me your name, but I wasn’t thinking about books. I knew you’d worked here in the past before you became a writer. Would you sign my copy of the novel? I thought it was fantastic. My mother liked it, too. And she’s so picky.”

Amy hadn’t anticipated a gushy greeting from a fan at 8:25 a.m.

“I’d be glad to sign your book,” she said, taking a pen from her purse. “What’s your name?”

“Sorry, I’m Janelle Watson. I came to work right after you left.”

Janelle handed Amy the book. The pages had enough wear to show they’d been read. Amy wrote Janelle’s name and a brief word of encouragement before autographing the book on the title page.

“Thanks for reading it,” Amy said as she handed the book back to the receptionist. “If you’d like to get a signed copy for your mother, I’d be glad to do that, too.”

“That would be awesome,” Janelle replied. “Her birthday is the middle of next month. It’s always hard finding something special for her because it’s so close to Christmas. Are you working on another book?”

“I just finished one that will be released next year and hope to start another one soon.”

“Ms. Kirkpatrick said you wrote this one while you were working here.”

“Not exactly. I wrote it at home.”

“Sure, but you had to be thinking about it. When I start a good book I get totally caught up in what’s going on and think about it whenever I have a free minute. That doesn’t always happen, but it did with your book. You drew me in with the first chapter. If it’s not a nuisance, I’d like to ask you some questions about it sometime. Maybe we could have lunch together.”

“That would be fun,” Amy said as the grandfather clock struck the half hour. “Is Ms. Kirkpatrick here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Amy, who had started to move on, stopped.

“Hold it,” she said. “My name is Amy. I’m not old, famous, or one of the bosses. Please don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Okay?”

“Sure.”

“But thanks for letting me know how much you’ve enjoyed the book. It means a lot.”

Amy adjusted her glasses as she walked down a long hallway to the firm administrator’s office. Doris Kirkpatrick had been with the law firm for more than thirty years. Her job duties had grown from bookkeeping to general oversight of financial and personnel matters. Her primary mission was to make things run smoothly so the lawyers could concentrate on billable hours. Amy tapped the open door lightly with her knuckles. The gray-haired woman glanced up from her desk.

“Back again?” she said with a smile. “You’ve changed a little bit since the first time you stood in that doorway.”

“I was twenty-one.”

“And I was forty-one, which is still older than you are now.”

Amy sat down.

“I met Janelle. She seems sweet.”

“A bit scatterbrained at times, but she makes a pleasant first impression on the phone.”

Ms. Kirkpatrick opened a thick manila folder. “We need to add a few items to your personnel file before you get started.”

Amy signed the papers. She knew everything Ms. Kirkpatrick had prepared would be correct. In less than five minutes, Amy was officially an employee.

“Anything I need to know before I get started?” Amy asked.

“I don’t think so. I’m here if you need to talk. I can help with most things, except changing Mr. Phillips’s mind.”

“Some things don’t change,” Amy said with a smile. “How about staff turnover in the past year and a half?”

Ms. Kirkpatrick went over departures and arrivals at the firm. There were four new employees. Chris Lance was the only new lawyer.

“I didn’t know Susan resigned,” Amy said, referring to a paralegal who worked for one of the partners.

“It was a sudden move. Her husband got a job offer in Raleigh.”

Amy paused. “How did Emily feel about me coming back?”

Ms. Kirkpatrick raised her eyebrows. “That’s a loaded question, but she had no choice but to take a leave. Her obstetrician ordered bed rest for the final three months of her pregnancy. She’s been gone since December 19, so Mr. Phillips has a serious backload of work. I asked Emily to leave you a detailed memo of work in progress.”

“Then I’d better get to it.” Amy stood up.

Unless he had an early morning hearing in court, Mr. Phillips arrived at the office precisely at 9:00 a.m. During the years she worked for him, Amy would organize and lay out correspondence and pleadings pertinent to the day’s responsibilities on his desk so he could quickly review them as soon as he came in. She’d also remove all junk
mail and spam that made it past the firm’s Internet filter so that his computer desktop was focused and uncluttered.

Amy went into her former office. Next to the computer screen Emily had positioned a big photo of herself and her husband, Rob, taken on the beach at Cancún following their wedding. A smaller photo of Emily with her pet schnauzer sat beside the phone. Amy put the pictures in the bottom drawer of the desk. She hadn’t thought about bringing photos from home to personalize her workstation.

She turned on the computer but was locked out. The password had been changed. The promised memo from Emily was nowhere to be seen. It would be like Emily to “accidentally” forget to prepare the document. Before buzzing Ms. Kirkpatrick, Amy typed in a couple of password possibilities. When she entered “Lawrence,” the name of Emily’s dog, the computer allowed her to log in. There was an e-mail to Amy from Emily with a Word doc attachment and photo at the top of the in-box.

Hey Amy,

The attached memo will get you started. Call me if you need anything. I’ll be flat on my back going crazy at home. Please pray for me and my baby. See ultrasound photo.

Emily

Amy read the e-mail three times. In a few sentences, Emily Ashburn went from being a conniving coworker who overtly tried to undermine Amy and steal her job to a scared first-time mother with a high-risk pregnancy. Emily was only a few years younger than Amy, and she and her husband had been trying to have a baby for almost a decade.

Amy printed out the grainy black-and-white photo of the unborn child, a boy, then bowed her head and prayed. She wrote a reminder on a Post-it note to “pray for Emily and her baby boy” and placed it in a spot between her keyboard and the desk where she would see it each day. She slipped the ultrasound photo into the top drawer of the desk as an additional reminder.

Emily had left a very thorough and helpful summary of the status of Mr. Phillips’s practice. Amy wasn’t the only one who had undergone change since leaving Jones, Barrington, and Phillips.

By the time Mr. Phillips arrived, Amy had opened and laid out his morning mail, performed housekeeping duties with his e-mail inbox, and pulled two files he would need for client meetings scheduled that morning. The strict formal organization required by the office was different from the free-flowing schedule of creative freedom Amy had enjoyed for the past eighteen months at home, but like an astronaut on the moon, she had to conform to the rules of the world in which she found herself. She was sitting at her desk when Mr. Phillips buzzed her and asked her to come into his office. She picked up a notepad and walked through the door that connected the two rooms.

Mr. Phillips was wearing a charcoal-gray suit, white shirt, and yellow tie. He had a cup of coffee in his hand. Amy knew which chair he preferred his assistant to use when she came into his office. She sat down with pen held to paper. The older lawyer looked at her.

“Good morning, Amy,” Mr. Phillips said. “Welcome back.”

“Good morning. Thanks.”

Amy waited. Mr. Phillips cleared his throat.