“I think,” Ethan said, leaning in closer, “maybe she asked you and Jackie to stop cooperating?” Megan was silent. She felt uncomfortable at the line of questioning. More than anything she wanted to be back on the show, but she didn’t want to get her mother in trouble with the network.
It never occurred to Megan to ask how Ethan knew what her mom had told her and Jackie. Not that he would have told her about the cameras in each of the house’s two bathrooms. Ethan had strict instructions that the director was to never use or even watch footage from those cameras. It was the most ignored rule on set; male members of the crew would routinely watch Deirdre—and her teenage daughters—shower.
“I know how hard it is to defy your mother,” Ethan offered, seeming to read Megan’s mind. “I went through something similar when I was your age.”
“You did?”
“It was in eighth grade. Is that the grade you’re in now?” Of course, Ethan knew the answer to his own question. Megan nodded. “Right, so you’ll understand. My mother and father didn’t like the group of friends I hung around with. If you can believe this, my parents thought they were too square.”
“Square?”
“They were nice kids, but a bit goofy. One of them loved movies so much that all he wanted was for us, our whole group of friends, to make our own movies. He had a Betamax recorder—”
“What’s that?”
“Well, this was back in the 1980s, before there was all this digital technology. It was a great big camera that used videotapes. To us, it was the coolest. Anyway, he used his Betamax to make movies. We all starred in them and had fun doing it. We would charge other kids in the neighborhood money to see them. My parents hated it. They thought I should have been hanging around boys who played sports, that sort of thing.”
“Most of my guy friends play sports,” Megan offered meekly.
“And that’s a good thing. But my friends back then, we were like a team, a fraternity. You know what a fraternity is?”
Megan nodded again.
“So anyway, I decided to ignore my parents and hang out with them. And this was doubly hard because my father was a colonel in the air force, and a pretty scary guy.”
“So what happened?” Megan asked.
“To tell the truth, those guys are the reason I went into television. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I had listened to my parents and hung out with different kids.”
None of Ethan’s story was true. His father was a mid-level manager at a regional bank, never in his life had he touched a Betamax recorder, and, like Megan, he only ever hung around with the popular kids. He wouldn’t have been caught dead with the AV Club nerds. But the story, culled from a spec script that had crossed his desk, served its purpose. The girl was wide-eyed. Ethan almost felt a pang of guilt as he realized just how young thirteen actually is. Almost.
“So, Megan, are you willing to do what’s right, even if it means going against your parents’ wishes?”
“I-I think so,” she stammered.
“Good,” he said, patting her knee. Megan recoiled on instinct, but Ethan didn’t notice. “Here’s what I’d like you to do.”
***
Sister Benedict settled into the ebb and flow of the Stone household with relative ease.
Her singular mission was to extend Jared’s life as long as medicine and technology would allow. Where the caregivers and the church failed with Terri Schiavo, Sister Benedict would succeed with Jared Stone. The doctors warned the Sister that a brain tumor was a decidedly different matter than Mrs. Schiavo, whose brain had been severely damaged when it was starved of oxygen due to a massive cardiac event. But the Sister, who knew precious little about medicine, put her faith in God. He would not have brought her all this way, would not have granted her entry to this house, if He did not have a plan.
Besides, Cardinal Trippe had made it clear to the medical team that Sister Benedict was his emissary on the set, and that she spoke for him. The Sister knew that she was not exactly following the Cardinal’s wishes when she instructed the doctors to do everything in their power to keep the man alive, but she was able to rationalize it. The ends, the Sister thought, sometimes do indeed justify the means.
Beyond the care of her patient, the Sister tried her best to avoid any connection to the television show. Of course, one did not set up camp in the Stone household without becoming a willing or unwilling participant.
Obeying the Cardinal’s direction, Sister Benedict succumbed to the daily interview with the producer, and to being filmed almost continuously by the many “hidden” cameras. The first time she saw herself on TV, on the episode of Life and Death that aired the night she arrived in the house, she was mortified.