Authors: Shelley Bates
“Anna?”
Silence.
Okay, this was going beyond annoying and becoming downright odd. The counselor’s office was on the other side of the library,
with its own outside entrance. She walked into the waiting room and knocked on the inner door. “Hello?”
“It’s open.”
She peered around the door and saw a young man with a soul patch and an earring lounging at the desk. “I thought—is Gail Burke
here?”
“No, she had a meeting. I’m Jed. I’m a member of the grief team.”
“Hi, Mom.”
There, curled up on an orange beanbag chair, was Anna. She wriggled to a sitting position as Laurie exhaled a long breath
made up of two parts relief and one part irritation.
“Do you mind telling me why you’re not out front?” She needed to keep this short and authoritative. “We’re going to be fifteen
minutes late because I had to run through the school looking for you.”
“Late for what?” Anna looked honestly puzzled.
“Our appointment with your cousin.”
Memory dawned. “Oh, yeah.”
“Oh, yeah. Let’s get moving.”
“Why? I’m already talking to a counselor.” Anna nodded at Jed. The stud in his eyebrow glinted, as if to punctuate the huge
gulf between the counselor Anna had chosen and the one Laurie and Colin had chosen for her.
Talking about what? The latest fashions in body jewelry?
“Anna, stop wasting time. Where’s your backpack?”
“In my locker. Mom, I’m talking to Jed. I don’t need to see anyone else.”
“At a hundred and fifty bucks an hour, you most certainly do.”
The beanbag chair seemed to puff around her daughter’s body as she sank into it, as though unwillingness were as heavy as
those lead aprons you put on at the dentist’s office.
“Anna, I’m not discussing this. Get up.” She moved to the door, but Anna didn’t heave a put-upon sigh and get to her feet.
Instead, she glanced at Jed, her eyes full of appeal.
“Mrs. Hale, if you don’t mind my saying so, Anna and I are making progress.”
Laurie didn’t reply. Instead, she glanced at her watch.
“I’ve been talking to him since it happened, Mom.”
“So I understand.” Laurie flicked a glance at Jed. “What I’d like to know is why I wasn’t told.”
“Parents aren’t told as a general rule.” Why was he so comfortable with this? How much experience had he had with skeptical
parents? “The kids are free to tell their parents, of course, but we’re as bound by confidentiality as any other professional
who might see Anna.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
How could Anna see a counselor behind our backs—opening up to a stranger who may or may not know what he’s doing?
“Not really. It’s important for Anna to know that anything she says here doesn’t leave the room. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
“The point is, we could have been working together.” She ignored Jed and spoke to Anna. “We could’ve talked about this stuff
at home. So Daddy and I wouldn’t have been worrying our heads off about things like you not wanting to ride over the Susquanny
Bridge or deciding to beat on your brother for no reason.”
“Mom, everybody beats on their brother,” Anna pointed out.
“Not in our family, they don’t.” She took a deep breath and looked at Jed. “So the bottom line here is that you’ve been counseling
my daughter without my permission and leaving me totally in the dark about what’s bothering her.”
“I’ve been counseling your daughter and helping her work through some issues,” Jed corrected gently.
“That’s very vague. How about we get specific?”
“Not without Anna’s permission.”
“No,” Anna said instantly. “You promised.”
Jed looked at Laurie and spread his hands, indicating, she supposed, that the matter was out of them.
“I don’t know anything about you, Jed. And I don’t feel confident that you’ll bring her through this.” Anna’s mental health
was far too important to trust to a slacker who poked holes in his head.
“Mrs. Hale, everyone on the grief team is licensed by the state. But aside from that, you can feel comfortable that Anna will
do the right thing for herself.”
At fourteen? “But—but what if—” What if it all went wrong? What if Anna had some kind of mental breakdown, and the only person
who knew the cause or effect was Jed? He could go back to Pittsburgh or wherever he came from at a moment’s notice, leaving
them to deal with the fallout.
“Anna is making progress,” he repeated. “The school’s policy is that if a student is in danger in any way—if they threaten
harm to themselves, for instance—the parents are to be notified immediately. But I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
You’d let me know if my kid was going to commit suicide, but when she screams at bridges and refuses to come out of her room,
I’m on my own?
“Anna’s a good kid.” He tossed her a grin, and Anna grinned back. She hadn’t seen Anna smile since before Randi’s death, Laurie
thought with a pang. Not one smile. “She has some issues, but we’ll get through them. And”—he glanced at his watch—“we have
half an hour left, so if you don’t mind . . . ?”
He got up and offered his hand. Laurie took it out of habit, not because she was harboring any goodwill toward this man who
had just dismissed her as though her opinions and plans didn’t matter.
“Fine. I’ll see you at home, then.”
“Bye, Mom.”
And then there was nothing to do but leave. Oh, and call Gregg to inform him they wouldn’t be coming after all. And since
his office had a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy, family or not, she was stuck paying a hundred and fifty dollars for
nothing.
When he got home from work and heard about it, Colin pulled out one of the kitchen stools and stared at her. “You mean you
didn’t haul her out of there and keep the appointment?”
This was not her fault. They were a team. She would not get angry and take it out on Colin.
“No, I didn’t. Apparently she’s been seeing the grief counselor since it happened, and he says she’s been ‘having issues’
but they’re ‘making progress.’” She made quotation marks with her fingers in the air. “If she already has a relationship with
this guy and she’s talking to him, I don’t see what good it will do to bring someone else in.”
“But you said he was a slacker type. With piercings! Honestly, Lor, what kind of example is he for Anna? At least with Gregg
we know he’s a Christian.”
She yanked open the fridge and hauled the turkey out. “Oomph.” A couple of seconds digging through the cupboard produced her
biggest roaster and gave her time to rein in her temper like the runaway horse it was.
“I hardly think his skill as a counselor depends on his faith, Colin.” Good grief, now she was defending a stranger. “If you
want to talk to Anna and inform her we’re taking her elsewhere, so that she has to start all over again with someone new,
you can try. But she’s so fragile right now I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“But you don’t even know what he’s saying to her. What kind of methods he’s using. What kind of ideas he’s putting in her
head.”
“We wouldn’t if she were seeing Gregg, either. Confidentiality.”
“But at least I’d know she was in Christian hands. I may not know as much about his qualifications as I’d like, but I do know
his faith is sound.”
“Colin, this is about what Anna needs, not what we need to know.”
“We’re her parents! Of course we should know.”
“Not according to the school system.”
“So, what, you’re just going to give up and let her do what she wants instead of what’s good for her? This is not boding well
for the rest of her teenage years.”
Only Colin used expressions like “boding well.”
“Talk to her if you want. See how far you get. I have to do something with this bird and then get dinner ready.”
“I just want what’s best for Anna.”
“I know. We both do. But Anna isn’t a child anymore, Colin. You can’t just tell her what to do. She’s fourteen, and she wants
to make a few decisions on her own.”
“This situation is too important for her to decide on her own. That kid has no clue about what’s good for her.”
“Mom? Dad?”
Laurie pulled the package of giblets out of the turkey’s cavity. Anna stood in the doorway.
“Are you having a fight about me?”
Colin’s face lost its intensity as tenderness softened his eyes. “No, sweetie. We’re having a discussion about you. Come on
in.”
Anna sidled into the room. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m concerned that you blew off your cousin Gregg today. Mind telling me why?”
“Oh.” Her shoulders straightened a little, as if this wasn’t what she’d been expecting. “I told Mom. I’m already talking to
Jed and working out some stuff about Randi and what happened. I don’t want to talk to anybody else.”
“Jed may be a perfectly good counselor, but I want you to talk to Gregg instead.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel he’s a better choice for you, honey.”
“Why? You don’t even know Jed. Did Mom say something bad about him?” Her glance flicked from her father to Laurie.
“No, of course not. But Gregg is a Christian, and leaving out the fact that he’s family, he’s very well qualified. Now, Jed—”
“He’s a Christian, too.” Anna swiped a box of crackers off the counter and crunched into them. “He goes to Calvary Christian
Center.”
The biggest church in town, where people like the O’Days went. This, in Laurie’s opinion, was no kind of recommendation. But
at least it proved he was local. If he’d been from Pittsburgh or some other big place, they might not be able to reach him
if Anna needed him.
“You just don’t like him because he’s cool and you’re . . . parents.”
“Oh, Anna, don’t be silly,” Laurie said. “We’re concerned about his qualifications.”
“Jed is just as qualified as Gregg. He’s got a Ph.D. And even if he didn’t, I still wouldn’t go to Gregg. As soon as I was
out of the office, he’d be on the phone, blabbing to Auntie Dawn and Grandma and you guys about what I said.”
“Anna, he can’t do that.” Colin was
this close
to losing his temper, which happened about once a year. Laurie knew it was because getting help for Anna was so important
to him, and he just didn’t understand why she would refuse his efforts to help her.
“You’d find a way to make him tell, and then what would happen to me?”
“I don’t know why you’re treating your feelings like some big secret.” Colin stood, the thin lines of his face set with anger.
“Do you know what’s in the paper, Anna?” Laurie said. “Kate Parsons, that’s what, telling the whole world that you held Randi
under the water. They can’t put your name in the article, of course, but you can bet it won’t be a secret for long. I suggest
you start sharing with us, I really do.”
Anna’s color faded, but she kept her mouth firmly shut.
“You’re worried about what’ll happen to you?” Colin said. “Here’s a news flash. You’re on lockdown for two more weeks on top
of your current sentence, that’s what.”
That got her. “But Daddy, that’s all of Christmas break!”
“What a coincidence. That’s the deal. Either you see Gregg as soon as he has an opening, or you’re looking at six weeks with
the same rules. Straight home from school, no phone, no TV, no friends over. No Christmas dance, and no church activities
unless your mother or I are there. Take your pick.”
Father and daughter stared each other down while Laurie held her breath.
Finally Anna shrugged. “Oh well. Mrs. Blake always gives a history paper over break. I guess I’ll have lots of time to write
it.”
With that she turned and, head held high, walked out of the kitchen. Colin looked as though he’d like to kick the nearest
turkey. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said tightly and left the room.
Laurie regarded the roasting pan for a moment. “That went well,” she observed. The turkey said nothing. When the phone rang,
she jumped about a foot.
“Hello?”
“Laurie, it’s Janice again. Janice Edgar?”
“How many Janices do I know?” She forced cheer into her voice. “I’m glad to hear your voice. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I was sitting here cutting up vegetables when God laid it on my heart to call you, so here I am.”
Her eyes stung with sudden tears. “His timing is impeccable. I’ve had a lousy day.”
“Can I help?”
“Not unless you can convince Anna it would be better for her to talk to her cousin the psychologist than the twenty-something
grief counselor at the school.”
“Ah. Well, if it’s any comfort, Kyle talked to him, too. Which one was it?”
“His name is Jed.”
“Yes. Same one.”
“I’m having a hard time trusting my little girl’s emotional health to a guy with a stud in his eyebrow.”
“Apparently he relates really well to the kids. Gail Burke is on one of my committees, and she says he’s gold.”
Her spirits lightened a little. “Really? I’m glad I have some good news to give Colin, then.” She lowered her voice. “Between
you and me, it’s turning into a power struggle.”
“I bet it is. But as long as she’s talking to the grief team, I really believe she’ll be in good hands. They didn’t have help
like this when I was in high school, and goodness knows some of us could have used it.”
Their friendship was too new and green for Laurie to jump in as she might have done and ask for details. “Thanks for the encouragement,
Janice. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“Keep your chin up. I need to get back to making dinner before Barrett and Kyle get home. Just remember, God is still in charge.
He’ll see that everything turns out for good for those who love him.”
Laurie said good-bye and hung up the phone. Truth be told, she wasn’t as sure about that as she might have been, say, a couple
of weeks ago.
T
anya, Nick saw
when he picked her up, had dressed in her best for Thanksgiving dinner at the Hales’ house. She wore a navy-blue dress that
wrapped across the front and tied with a bow at the waist. On a lot of women this would have been fatally boring, but Tanya’s
skin seemed even more soft and fragile, and her reddish-blonde hair glowed. Instead of tying her hair up in a bun or scraping
it back in a ponytail, she’d allowed it to curl loosely around her face.