get back to the office. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. She smiled. See you tonight.
Oh, God. How could I have forgotten about that? My folks had insisted that another family dinner was in order tonight. Since Saturdays or Sundays were generally the days we had family get-togethers, I could only assume the worst. This meeting would be about me, same as the one going on upstairs. The one difference was the chief only held the power to make my professional life miserable. My family, well…they held serious power over my entire existence.
The Walters family home stands proudly in a quiet, genuinely middle-class neighborhood on the fringes of Nashville’s west side. The houses that line the streets of the neighborhood are the signature architecture of the seventies. Think Brady Bunch tri-level. Four or five bedrooms, three bathrooms and always, always a den for the family as well as a formal living room for entertaining.
Not that the Walters family entertains on a regular basis, but holidays and birthdays are big deals in a clan this size. Especially when you take into account the uncles, aunts and cousins. Good thing they all have the big Brady Bunch kitchen and dining room, too.
I moved around the table placing the silverware next to each china plate. Blue Willow, the same pattern my mother had used for my entire life. At family get-togethers, each member always had his or her chore. The men were currently slaving—think the loosest definition found in Webster’s of the word—over the barbecue grill while the women scurried to set the table and place the cold side items on the buffet.
All four of my brothers are married, but none has kids as of yet, much to the dismay of my folks. Since my hearing loss and the subsequent exit of my fiancé, the pressure has been off me to produce offspring.
I surveyed the table to make sure I hadn’t missed anything and couldn’t help thinking that the scene belonged on the set of Cheaper by the Dozen. All four of my brothers were lugheads when it came to the overprotective sibling genes. Not once in school did anyone dare to pick on me. Not the boys, for fear of being pounded. Not even the girls, for fear that their brothers would be pounded or, in the absence of a male sibling, for worry of being blackballed in the dating arena. In order to remain popular among the star athletes one had to stay on the good side of the whole team.
Boy, did I have a surprise waiting for me when I went off to college. For the first time in my entire life I’d had to stand up for myself without big-brother backup. I guess that’s when I realized what I’d been missing all that time. I didn’t want to be the sweet little overprotected girl who never got into trouble and who never, ever took a chance. Needless to say, I made up for lost time in a big way. The only thing conservative about my higher-learning experience had been my major, elementary education. I dated a different guy every week and basically had a blast. Not that I’d been promiscuous. The fact was I’d only slept with two guys my entire college career.
Life had calmed down when I’d settled into teaching and my work had given me the sense of accomplishment I needed. Why couldn’t anyone see that I needed that feeling again? It was so simple…such a small thing.
Someone tapped my shoulder and I found Lola, my next-to-oldest brother’s wife, waiting patiently for my gaze to settle on her lips.
Food’s ready but first we have a family meeting in the den. She looked about as pleased regarding the prospect as I did.
I nodded, then followed her down the hall to the den. Everyone else was already there. I took my seat. That’s another thing about big families. Everyone has an assigned seat. The concept cuts down on the quarreling over who sits where—it especially did back when we were kids.
Martin, my oldest sibling, started off the conversation. Usually the opening words were issued by my father. That he’d deferred to the senior member of Metro’s police force in the family set me on edge. This was no typical family meeting. This was about me and my little undercover escapade.
Merri, you know how much we all love you.
Uh-oh. Now I was really worried. In my experience, whenever a family meeting started off with those words it usually meant I was grounded for at least a week. But I was almost thirty…grounding was not likely on the agenda.
I nodded, well aware that everyone in the room expected me to respond in some way.
What you did this past week, however heroic, was very foolish.
Anger flushed my cheeks. “We’ve already been over this,” I said pointedly. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I glanced at Sarah in hopes of getting some support.
She moistened her lips, looked from me to Martin. The chief has already counseled her firmly about it, she offered. She managed a smile for my benefit. I don’t think we have to worry about our Merri getting into anything over her head like this again.
As much as I appreciated Sarah’s bolstering words, she was wrong. They were all wrong. I looked from one concerned face to the next. How did I make them see that I had to do something more? Being a file clerk, or historical archivist, as Helen would say, simply was not enough.
“Mom, Dad—” I met the gaze of each as I spoke “—as much as I understand and appreciate your concern, you have to understand my position. I have aspirations.” I searched my father’s eyes. The eyes of a man who had risen from untrained office assistant to the top CPA in his firm while raising a family. Funny, I mused, momentarily distracted by the idea. Not a single child he’d spawned had gone into his line of “safe” work. Why was it so unthinkable that I would want to do more? “There’s no point in discussing the subject further, because you already know how I feel.” We’d had this talk hundreds of times since the onset of my disability.
But the risk you took this time was out of character even for you, Merri. This from my mom.
That was true. I couldn’t really explain where that had come from. As fiercely independent as I’d been since my college days, I’d never been foolhardy. But when I’d read the case file on Sawyer I just couldn’t help myself. The files I’d read previously had set me on fire…had fueled a yearning inside me like I’d never before experienced. I loved trying to figure out who the bad guy was…trying to solve the puzzle. What was so bad about that?
I started to say as much, but my father stopped me with an uplifted hand. I held my tongue and let him speak. To this day, not a single Walters kid back-talked.
We’ve discussed what happened at length.
A sinking feeling, disappointment or something on that order, tugged at my stomach. We’d talked as a family once last night. When had they talked at length? Why hadn’t I been included in the discussion, especially considering I was the subject?
Merri, my father went on, the worry in his eyes only adding to the hurt starting to well inside me, we feel that perhaps additional counseling is in order. The catastrophic changes in your life these past two years are enough to make anyone behave erratically. We want you to be happy, but we also want you to be safe.
I felt utterly betrayed. I surveyed the people I knew with complete certainty loved me and couldn’t help feeling that they’d let me down. They just didn’t understand how much I needed their complete understanding right now.
Very little of what was said after that penetrated the haze of disappointment. Each of my brothers took his turn telling me how I had to be extra careful, couldn’t look out for myself the way I used to. Even Sarah remained quiet, rather than suggesting otherwise.
Nothing I did or said would
