She had waited outside the door for less than ten minutes when Clem came outside to retrieve her. He nodded and told her things were going to be okay.
“I have remanded custody of your daughter to you upon your request,” Judge Oliver told Jeannie in a wheezy voice. “My clerk is preparing the order as we speak, and we will fax it to Twelve Sleep County.”
Jeannie actually cried with joy, and reached across the desk to shake his huge, crablike hand. She was so happy, and so grateful, thanks to Judge Oliver.
Oliver smiled back, but his eyes were on Clem.
Clem ushered Jeannie to the back of the room while the judge sat at his desk. She could tell when she looked at him that Clem had done something awful.
“The judge asked about compensation,” Clem had whispered nervously. “I told him we couldn’t pay him very much.”
“Clem, you asshole,” Jeannie had whispered back, furious. “We can’t pay him
Clem had hesitated, then gulped, then pulled at his collar.
“What, damn you?” she asked. Her whisper was loud enough, she thought, to be heard by the judge.
Clem continued to look at his own boots. Then she understood.
She turned toward Judge Oliver and smiled sweetly.
“I’ll wait for you out in the truck,” Clem mumbled, still looking down.
“You bet your bony ass you will,” Jeannie said over her shoulder, through smiling teeth.
“I guess I don’t get it why you want to go into that school and get her,” Clem said. “With that order and all, you could march right up to their house and take her.”
Jeannie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Clem, sometimes you’re even stupider than usual.”
He looked away, stung.
“It’s been three long years,” she said. “Do you want to drag a crying, screaming kid out of somebody’s house?”
Clem frowned. “But you’re her mother. She’ll want to go with you.”
She glared at him. “Who knows what kind of crap and filth about me they’ve put into her head? Who knows what they’ll tell her tonight, now that they know we’ve got this here order?”
Clem shook his head, confused. But it was obvious he didn’t want to argue.
“What this order means,” Jeannie said, “is that they can’t get her
Clem dropped his eyes to the floorboards of the truck. “I’m just sorry what you had to do to get it.”
Jeannie snorted. “I’ve done worse.”
For once, Jeannie Keeley was lucky. She remembered the layout of the school well enough to walk straight to the office without asking anyone where it was.
Her heels clicked on the tile floor and her green dress swished with purpose as she walked down the hallway. Most of the classroom doors were open, and the sounds of children and teachers came and went like radio stations set on “scan” as she walked.
The school office was empty except for a secretary who sat at a computer behind the front counter. Jeannie had been thinking about this for a long time. This was a small town. Everybody knew damned near everybody else. She had not been inside the school for four years, since April was in kindergarten. She doubted she had made enough of an impression to be remembered. When she finally decided how to play it, it was simple. She operated on one premise:
“Hi again. I’m April Keeley’s mother,” Jeannie said with such familiarity and assurance that the secretary should be ashamed for not recognizing her. “Third grade. I’m here to take her to the dentist.”
The secretary looked befuddled, and plunged into a spiral notebook on her desk. “I’m filling in today for the secretary because she came back from Christmas vacation with the flu,” the woman explained. “I’m trying to figure out how this works.”
Jeannie tried not to whoop with jubilation. She hoped she hadn’t looked too elated.
What would Marybeth Pickett do?
“No hurry at all,” Jeannie said. “I sent the note with April this morning, so it could be that it didn’t even get to you. I don’t mean to cause any problems.”
The secretary flipped page after page in the notebook, then looked up. Her face was red with embarrassment. “There’s nothing here, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t bring in the note.”
Jeannie made a “What can you do?” gesture.
Twenty
Sheridan and Lucy stood waiting at the curb when their father pulled up to the school to pick them up. Sheridan held Lucy’s hand. It was darker than it had been all day, and mist tendrils reached down from the sky like cold fingers. It wasn’t really snowing, but ice crystals hung suspended in the air.
“Where’s April?” her dad asked, as Lucy climbed over the bench seat to the narrow crew-cab backseat and Sheridan jumped up beside him.
“Mom came and got her this afternoon,” Sheridan said, pulling the seatbelt across her.
