if she had any more of a choice than she had when either of the two police officers had appeared on her doorstep in the last week. Meg managed a polite smile and let the social worker in.
Leading the way, she said, “Would you care for tea or coffee?”
“Oh!” Kathryn darted into the living room to stare at the shepherd rug. “This is amazing. Where did you...” Her voice trailed off as she spotted the pillows. “Oh, my. These are wonderful. Did you make them?”
This might be an attempt to disarm her, but Meg didn’t think so. Her walls started to crumble.
“Yes, that’s what I do for a living. I design and hook wool rugs, pillow covers, wall hangings. I also sell and occasionally license the patterns and am working on a book that teaches technique and has some new patterns.”
“Where do you sell?” She looked chagrined. “I suppose we should get business over before I drool on your rug.”
Meg laughed. “Tea or coffee?”
The social worker chose tea, and she wandered after Meg to the kitchen, pausing only briefly to peek in the former dining room, now Meg’s studio. In the kitchen, she set her briefcase on the table. “This house has such charm.”
Either she was laying it on thick or she and Meg could be friends. In case of the former, Meg reminded herself to be wary.
Once she’d poured the tea, they sat down, facing each other across the table. Kathryn Berry had her wavy, gray-streaked hair cut short. She wore little if any makeup and didn’t seem to care about crow’s feet. She opened her briefcase and removed a pair of reading glasses, a notepad and pen. “I’m still low-tech,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m so low-tech,” Meg admitted. “My daughter embarrasses me on a regular basis.”
“A five-year-old could embarrass me.” Kathryn smiled apologetically. “Okay, tell me about your daughter first.”
Meg did, relieved because, despite the recent outbreak of hormone-driven sullenness, Emily came across as successful. The social worker jotted down notes: daughter in honors English, stage-managed the high school’s fall musical, had a 4.0 GPA so far. Of course, none of that said anything about Emily’s real character, the qualities like kindness and generosity that Meg valued most.
But she heard herself continue talking. “Not a grain of artistic ability that I can see. Oddly enough, that’s Sabra’s strength. Her art teacher raved to me, and I had to agree that what she showed me was head and shoulders beyond what any of her peers are doing.”
She explained that Sabra and Emily had known each other since fifth grade, but had grown closer in middle school and become best friends the previous year. The past year, Meg had gotten an earful about Sabra’s tempestuous relationship with her mother.
“They’re both over the top emotionally. You know? Although at Sabra’s age, it’s a little hard to know whether she has a fiery personality or is just an average teenager. Plus, of course, there’s the pregnancy hormones.”
“And the very fact she is pregnant, which must alter how other kids perceive her.”
“Yes.”
Meg explained to this woman, as she had to Detective Moore, that she’d initially taken Sabra in on an emergency basis, not expecting her stay to extend the way it had.
“She’s proved a lot harder to deal with than I expected,” she confessed, making a face. “Right now, I’m voting for fiery.” Relieved by Kathryn’s laugh, she said, “I’ve just lately started to worry about what the next step should be for her. I can’t set everything aside to take care of her baby so she can stay in school.” And yet essentially abandoning Sabra the way her mother had wasn’t an option she could live with, either. “I suppose I would have called DSHS soon to ask for advice,” she said reluctantly, given a built-in wariness about institutions with more rules than heart.
Kathryn, she thought, had heart and might be willing to let some rules slide.
“Do you think Sabra imagined that she could stay long term?”
Meg shook her head immediately. “No. That’s been another worry. She acted as if she had a plan. She just wouldn’t say what it was. She told both Emily and me that she might get married, but she’s been adamant in not saying who the father of her baby is.”
“Hmm.”
“Have you spoken to Detective Moore who is investigating her disappearance?”
“I wasn’t aware anyone was yet,” Kathryn said, sounding surprised and possibly annoyed at having been kept in the dark. “Is there reason to believe she was abducted?”
“No,” Meg said, a little grimly. “There’s reason to believe she took off on her own.” She explained about the books, and that Emily had come up with a list last night of what she thought was missing, a list that included makeup and some of her favorite clothes. “Her toothbrush is here, but it’s possible she took a new one. Several were in the drawer.”
“Phone?”
“Yes, and her iPod, but she takes those to school on a normal day.”
Kathryn did suggest gently that Meg probably ought to have contacted DSHS if she was unable to persuade Sabra’s mother to sign a written contract. Meg didn’t say that the idea of a contract had never occurred to her. Apparently what she’d thought of as a kindness, being part of a village coming together to care for a child, wasn’t supposed to happen in the real world.
Kathryn asked to see Sabra’s bedroom, which Emily had, under duress, picked up last night. It still wasn’t organized, but at least without Sabra’s clothing strewn everywhere, only Emily’s, the room appeared spacious and airy with the high ceiling and a pair of double-sash windows looking out at the backyard.
They discussed possibilities for when—not if—Sabra returned, both staying completely positive. Kathryn offered her a card so she could call for any reason.
And then, a fanatical light in her eyes, the social worker said, “Now tell me how I can learn to hook rugs.”
* * *
THE DAY WAS completely unreal. Emily couldn’t believe she was supposed to go from class to class and concentrate on lectures, even take a pop quiz in geometry, when none of it was important compared with finding out where Sabra had gone.
Sabra was all anyone could talk about. And it wasn’t just to Emily. As she carried her tray through the cafeteria, snippets of conversation came to her.
“So she left with the guy who knocked her up? What’s the big deal?”
“She just wants attention.” That was a girl’s voice, and Emily knew her. She was being spiteful, because she liked being center stage. “Nobody was interested anymore. I mean, she was pregnant. We all knew that. So she had to do something.”
Emily was really tempted to trip and, oh oops, drop her tray on Belle Whitmore’s head. The Taco Surprise looked gross anyway. She could get something out of the machine instead.
But she never actually did the stuff she wanted to. Sabra
