The Living Room (20 page)

“Based on what? And don’t claim women’s intuition. That wouldn’t cover something like this.”

“No, it’s not intuition. I’ve been a Christian since I was a little girl.”

“That doesn’t explain anything, either.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try. Are you a psychic?”

“No, I don’t believe in that.”

“But it looks to me like that’s what you are. Talking to the dead, stuff like that, is what psychics claim to do.”

“I don’t talk to the dead.” Amy looked at her watch. “I really need to go downstairs and organize Mr. Phillips’s mail. Forget what I said.”

Chris stared at her for a moment. “That’s not possible. And even though it doesn’t have anything to do with your job, I would appreciate an honest answer from you.”

“May I go now?”

“Whatever,” Chris said with a wave of his hand.

Amy fled down the stairs. She could see that Chris had one of the traits common to successful trial lawyers—a dogged determination to ask questions until every rock was turned over and the ground beneath it carefully inspected.

“Why did I do that?” she muttered to herself when her right foot touched the main floor of the mansion.

Letting her light shine sounded nice when talking to Ms. Burris and Natalie, but turning it on a photograph in a skeptical lawyer’s office wasn’t fun. Amy had felt strangely drawn to the man in the picture, but it wasn’t until Chris mentioned his deceased brother-in-law’s name that the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle dropped into place. She knew in her heart that David was with the Lord.

Amy reached her desk and tried to compose herself. Instead, an unexpected wave of emotion swept over her. The wonderful truth that the young man was in heaven was so sweet and tender and powerful and comforting that it suddenly overwhelmed her. And for a moment, the goodness of God in preparing a place for his children was greater than the embarrassment she felt over the conversation with Chris. Amy dabbed her eyes with a tissue. This was not the way she’d imagined her morning would begin.

After saying a quick prayer for Emily and her baby, she started opening Mr. Phillips’s mail.

thirteen

A
my made it through the rest of the day without seeing Chris Lance. She ate lunch at her desk and continued to whittle down the backlog of Mr. Phillips’s work. By 5:00 p.m., she estimated she would be caught up by midday on Wednesday. Of course, new batches of dictation continued to be channeled by the senior partner into her queue. Immediately after she logged off her computer to go home, Mr. Phillips buzzed her phone and asked her to come into the office.

“Amy,” he said without looking up from some papers he was examining on his desk, “I have a meeting this evening with the board of directors for Plaxo Industries. I need you to come and take notes.”

Amy swallowed. “Jeff is working out of town, and I have to pick up Megan from dance class and Ian from his after-school program.”

Mr. Phillips looked up. “Can someone else do it? There’s a chance this meeting will get contentious, and I want an accurate record of what’s said and who says it. I can’t referee and write at the same time.”

In the past, Amy had almost never turned Mr. Phillips down when he asked her to perform extra duties, and she hated to refuse so soon after coming back to work. She struggled for a tactful way to respond. There was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Mr. Phillips barked.

It was Chris Lance. He saw Amy and started to back away.

“No, stay,” Mr. Phillips said. “Chris, you claim to be a fast typist, don’t you?”

“I get by pretty well,” Chris responded slowly.

“We’re about to find out. You’re coming with me to a corporate board meeting this evening and taking notes on your laptop.”

Chris glanced at Amy, and she knew he suspected what had happened shortly before he came into the room.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to do it.”

“Good,” Mr. Phillips said. “We’ll leave in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks,” Amy said to Chris, who ignored her.

Driving away from the office, Amy knew she had to develop a backup plan for child care in case Mr. Phillips asked her to work late again. She’d simply not thought about it yet.

She picked up Ian first.

“How was after-school care?” she asked as soon as he was seated in the car.

“Okay, I guess. Ms. Bolton made me do my homework first. That took over an hour before I got to do anything with my friends.”

“But it also means you don’t have any schoolwork to do after supper. How were the snacks?”

“Good, but they ran out of brownies, and I only got one.” Ian put his backpack on the floorboard of the car. “Tommy didn’t tell Ms. Bolton the truth about his homework. We’re in the same math class and both of us had fifty problems to solve. He told her he didn’t have any homework. Should I have tattled on him?”

Amy thought about the exposing the deeds of darkness verse from Ephesians but wasn’t sure if it applied to Tommy’s math homework.

“That’s a hard one,” she said. “What do you think is the right thing to do?”

“I wanted to tell on him because I was mad that he got out of the work when I didn’t. But then I thought that he’ll get in trouble at school if he doesn’t do it before tomorrow. Ms. Bolton talked about something she calls the ‘honor system.’ That means it’s up to us to tell her the truth about stuff like homework.”

“Were you glad you told her the truth?”

“Yeah. I would have felt bad if I’d lied about it.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Ian was silent for a moment. “Do you and Dad always tell the truth?”

“We try to.”

“It’s hard to think about you telling a lie.”

Living up to a child’s expectations of adult conduct was tough. Amy wondered again about the wisdom of saying something to Chris Lance about his deceased brother-in-law. She was trying to tell the truth, but there was no way for Chris to verify it.

They reached the dance studio. Amy left Ian in the car while she went inside. Megan had already changed out of her leotards and was wearing her school clothes. Ms. Carlton handed Amy an envelope.

“Here’s the bill for January. Sorry about the increase, but I had to sign a new lease on the studio, and the rent went way up. Also, the practice mats were worn out and needed to be replaced.”

“I understand,” Amy said. “We appreciate what you do for the girls.”

The instructor patted Megan on the shoulder. “Working with dancers like Megan makes it all worthwhile. I know it’s early to think about the future, but she could do something serious with dance if that’s what she wants. A lot of girls learn the steps; Megan dances from deep inside.” Ms. Carlton looked at Amy. “I guess she gets that level of artistry from you. It just takes a different form.”

“We’re proud of her.”

Amy and Megan moved toward the door.

“How was school?” Amy asked when they were out of earshot of Ms. Carlton. “Did things calm down?”

“I don’t want to talk about it in front of Ian.”

The short ride home took place in silence. Once they reached the house, Ian went into the family room and turned on the TV.

“Where do you want to talk?” Amy asked Megan as they stood in the kitchen. “We could go up to your room.”

“Not now.” Megan brushed past her toward the stairs.

Amy stared after her for a few seconds, then began preparing a chicken casserole. While she worked, she went through several possible scenarios for Megan’s day at school. None had a happy ending.

After putting the casserole in the oven, Amy changed into more comfortable clothes. The door to Megan’s room was closed, and Amy paused for a moment to listen. She could hear Megan talking in a low voice on the phone but couldn’t understand what she was saying or whom she might be talking to. Megan’s decision not to communicate was one of the toughest challenges Amy had faced as a parent.

The casserole was starting to bubble when the phone rang. It was the high school. Amy picked up the phone and peeked into the family room to make sure Ian was still watching TV.

“Hello,” she said.

“Mrs. Clarke?” a female voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Madeline Robbins, one of the counselors at the school. I think we met during ninth-grade orientation at the beginning of the year.”

Amy remembered Ms. Robbins, an attractive black woman in her thirties.

“Yes.”

“I met with Megan today during her second-period study hall, and she told me you’re aware of the texting incident that occurred yesterday involving Nate Drexel.”

“We know there was a text but not what it said.”

“I have it here.”

The counselor read the text. Amy’s eyes opened wide, and her face grew pale.

“That’s bad,” she managed.

“The administration agrees. Nate will be given in-school suspension for ten days and won’t be able to participate in spring sports activities. My question for you and your husband is whether you want him to apologize to Megan. Any apology would be supervised by me
and take place in the school office, but we didn’t want to make this part of the disciplinary process unless you wanted us to.”

Amy was impressed with the suggestion. “I’ll need to talk to my husband when he gets home. What does Megan know about the punishment or the possibility of an apology?”

“I told her about the suspension when I met with her but not about sitting down with Nate.”

“How did she seem to you? I picked her up at dance class, and she didn’t want to talk to me about anything. She’s been in her room ever since.”

“I won’t minimize the emotional trauma. Megan seems like a confident young woman, but this has been very hard on her. It helps that she has a group of good friends. They seem supportive; however, too many students think making fun of a ninth-grade girl is cheap entertainment. That’s not the culture we promote at the school, but it’s a sad reality.”

“Yesterday Megan wanted to transfer to Broad Street Christian where she went to elementary school.”

“That’s definitely an option. I’d like to stay in close contact with her for the next couple of weeks. She has an appointment to see me again tomorrow. Time will tell.”

Amy was surprised that the counselor didn’t discount the possibility of pulling Megan out of the public high school.

“Thanks for what you’re doing. I’ll talk to my husband and let you know about the apology.”

The counselor gave Amy her direct number at the school.

“I’d encourage you to include Megan in the discussion about the apology. She’ll likely oppose the idea at first, but I think it would be a good thing to do.”

Amy hung up the phone. The timer went off, signaling the casserole was done. Jeff came into the kitchen from the garage.

“How’s Megan?” he asked. “I thought about her the whole time driving back to Cross Plains.”

Amy told him what she knew, leaving out the specific wording of
the text. Jeff’s anger was buried deep, but when aroused, it was hard to keep caged.

“Let’s try to talk to her after supper,” Amy suggested. “Will you go upstairs and see if you can get her to come down and eat?”

Amy and Ian set the table while they waited for Jeff and Megan.

“What’s going on with Megan?” Ian asked. “She spends all her time in her room, and I heard her crying when I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth last night.”

“Someone hurt her feelings at school,” Amy said.

“Was it Nate Drexel?”

“How did you know?”

“His little brother is in Ms. Duncan’s class, and he told me on the playground that Megan was going to get Nate kicked out of school. I told him he was crazy.”

“Megan can’t make anything happen. It’s up to the principal to decide how Nate is punished.”

“What did he do?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “I know about more stuff than you think.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Before Amy could correct Ian’s attitude, Jeff returned to the kitchen with a solemn-faced Megan in tow. It was another meal eaten in silence, but Amy was thankful that Megan was present and had an appetite. She liked chicken casserole and ate two helpings. Without any conversation at the table, supper was over quickly. Jeff told Ian he would pay him five dollars to clean up the garage.

“But, Dad, you always put away your tools,” Ian said.

“Then it will be an easy five bucks. Stay there until seven o’clock.”

“Is that so you and Mom can talk to Megan about Nate Drexel?”

“What do you know about that?” Megan asked, a horrified look on her face.

“Just what his little brother said on the playground,” Amy responded. “And most of that wasn’t correct.”

Ian opened his mouth, but before any words came out, Jeff spoke.

“Out to the garage!” he said. “Now!”

Ian retreated from the kitchen, and in a few seconds they heard the door to the garage close.