Robert Whitlow - Deeper Water

"That's good."

"He's been home for a week or so. I spent some time with him yesterday because Kyle is taking care of his cattle. I think he's going to give Kyle a fine-looking calf as payment."

"Good."

"And he felt well enough to tell me a few stories from the old days and asked me to pray for him. He's tender toward the Lord. Talking to him gave me a lot of hope that he'll get right before his time comes. "

"What about his clients?"

"He's already brought in an experienced lawyer from Dalton who does the same kind of work. I can't place his name, but he's going to take over the practice. I think he brought along an associate too."

In a split second my safety net had evaporated.

"And he asked about you, of course," Daddy continued. "I told him you were getting along fine."

"Yes sir," I managed. "I guess he had to find someone to help his clients immediately."

Daddy didn't notice the strained tone in my voice.

"I suppose you mainly called to talk about the young man you want to bring home for a visit."

"Which one?" I blurted out, then coughed into the receiver as a diversion. "Excuse me," I said after clearing my throat. "I'd like to put that topic on hold for a while. I need to concentrate on my work without being distracted."

"Good girl," Daddy replied. "That sounds like a wise decision."

"I hope so."

"Continue to seek his will, and he'll take care of helping you find your life partner. Do you want to talk to Mama? She's upstairs with the twins. They had a spat this afternoon and need to do some repenting."

"No sir. Tell her I love her."

That night I lay in bed and tried to come to terms with what had happened to Oscar Callahan. I felt guilty about dwelling on the effect his heart attack had on my future and tried to force myself to pray for the lawyer's recovery. I could concentrate for several minutes before my thoughts drifted back to the air-conditioned white office on the corner now occupied by lawyers who wouldn't need an inexperienced female associate to drive up overhead costs. After tossing and turning for an hour, I turned on the light and wrote a long prayer for Mr. Callahan in my journal. The discipline of writing helped me focus. I wrote "Amen," then started another prayer for the Moses Jones case. It was good seeing the names of the people involved in the sentences requesting God's help. It put them, and the situation, in a better perspective. When I turned out the lights the second time, I quickly fell asleep.

AFTER THE MONOTONY OF DAYS, WEEKS, AND MONTHS OF unchanging jailhouse routine, the smells and sounds of waking up in his shack by the river began to fade from Moses' memory. The airconditioned environment of the jail didn't vary more than a couple of degrees, but Moses would have traded confined comfort for the hottest heat of the summer or the coldest rain of the winter along the Little Ogeechee.

Each day, he wondered if the tall girl who wasn't a real lawyer would visit and reveal his future. Twice a day, he pushed his gray buggy down the halls and collected trash. At the dump bin, he always spent a few seconds peering through the fence at his boat, which remained chained to a pole in the stolen-car impound. But as time passed, the boat looked more like a piece of dented aluminum waiting for the scrap heap than a river vessel that became a graceful extension of himself when floating on the water.

He passed from depression to despair. He'd rarely talked to the other prisoners before, but now he was sure some of the newcomers wondered if he could speak at all. The old man had become a familiar part of the jailhouse scene. Years, he'd waited for death. He'd always thought it would come suddenly when the pain that occasionally moved from his chest down his left arm would double back and explode his heart while he was leaning over the edge of his boat, trying to haul in a big fish. The thrill of the moment would trigger the end, and he would tumble easily into the water to join the mystery of the dark beyond.

He now feared that he would pick up a heavy bag of trash one afternoon, collapse in a heap on the concrete floor, and be hauled out by his replacement, in the gray buggy, to the dump bin.

WHEN I ARRIVED at the office in the morning, there was a note on the table in the library asking me to come to Mr. Carpenter's office as soon as I arrived. I read the note twice, hoping it said something different the second time. I'd never been a quitter, but my resolve of the previous day had faded, and for a few seconds I entertained the notion of leaving the building, never to return. I had no idea what Mr. Carpenter had discovered about my activities, but it was naive to think he didn't know what I was doing. I marched as resolutely as my legs allowed down the hallway.

"Mr. Carpenter is expecting you," his secretary said. "Go on in."

I tentatively opened the door. The managing partner was sitting at his desk with a stack of papers near his right hand. He looked up. "What have you been doing?" he asked.

"Mr. Carpenter," I began in the most respectful voice I could muster.

"I thought you were going to have a memo about the status of the Gallagher Corporation holdings in the Folsom case ready for me before you left the office yesterday. I have a deposition scheduled in an hour and a half and want to be able to sort out how Mrs. Folsom finagled her way into a majority position."

My mouth dropped open. "Uh, I left the memo on your secretary's desk two days ago."

Mr. Carpenter picked up the phone. "Sharon! Do you have a memo about Gallagher Corporation from Tami Taylor on your desk?"

The lawyer glared past me at the door, which opened in a few seconds. The secretary entered and walked gingerly past me. She handed Mr. Carpenter the memo without looking at me.

"Here it is. It was placed in another file by mistake."

Mr. Carpenter didn't say anything but grabbed it and began reading it. He grunted several times. I sat still.

"Where is the documentation supporting your opinion?" he asked.

"In the file in the library."

"Get it," he said.

I fled from the office and returned to the library. Julie was there.

"What's going on?" she asked when she saw my face. "Is it Vinny or Zach?"

"Neither. Mr. Carpenter's secretary misplaced that memo I wrote about Gallagher Corporation. She found it, but he wants the documents and research." I riffled through the folders looking for the correct one. "Is being a lawyer worth the stress?"

"Oh, yes. Of course, I don't have a clue myself, but if I believed differently, I would be on my way to the beach this morning."

I grabbed the folder and returned to Mr. Carpenter's office. Sharon didn't look up as I passed her desk.

"Here it is," I said, handing it to him. "I'm sorry for the mix-up."

"It's not your fault," he said with a wave of his hand. "How are the documents organized in the file?"

"Reverse chronological. I flagged the ones that are particularly helpful with red tabs."

Mr. Carpenter flipped through the file and grunted again. "Good work," he said. "Next week I'll have another case for you to work on. It has similar issues."

"Yes sir."

I left his office. It wasn't even 8:30 a.m., yet I felt drained. When I returned to the library, Julie was talking to Vince.

"He wants to see you," she said when I entered the room. "I'm doing the best I can to entertain him, but I can tell he's getting bored."

Vince looked at me. "Are you available for lunch today?"

"I'm not sure. I've been putting out a fire with Mr. Carpenter."

"What kind of fire?" Vince asked a bit too loudly.