Deirdre held the door and waited. Ethan was now talking to her through the smallest sliver of daylight.
“I’d like to sit with you and the girls and figure out how we can come to some sort of détente. You want to live your life, and I have a contract with the family to produce a television show. And I have advertisers to keep happy. You tell me what you need, I’ll tell you what I need, and maybe we can put the hatchets down, if not bury them. You don’t have to like me, Deirdre, but maybe there’s some way we can work together. It would be best for all of us, don’t you think?” Always end with a question, he thought. Don’t let them just walk away; make them respond.
Deirdre waited for a long moment. He could feel her searching his eyes.
“Okay, Ethan,” she answered. “First thing tomorrow. The four of us will meet over breakfast and see what we can figure out. Would that be okay?”
“That would be more than okay. I really appreciate it. And I’m really sorry to have disturbed you. Thanks, and have a good night.” When the sale is done, stop selling, he thought.
“You too,” Deirdre said, and closed the door.
Ethan heaved a sigh of relief. He could feel his mojo coming back.
***
Deirdre knew the cameras were on her, so she was careful not to show emotion, but when she closed the door after talking to Ethan, she wanted to laugh. It was partly from the release of stress, and partly from the joy of knowing she had bought herself valuable time to do what she needed to do.
Ethan was going to back down until the morning. Yes, the control truck would be watching, and yes, she and the girls had to dance a very careful dance, but Ethan’s visit was both unexpected and good news.
There was less than two hours to air, and Deirdre was full of adrenaline. It was this spike in nervous energy that made it all the more remarkable that she was able to muster the discipline to lie on the bed and close her eyes. She recounted what had transpired in the past twenty-four hours and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
***
Sister Benedict was enamored of the technology she now wore. She thought of the earpiece and microphone as accessories. Vain women wore lipstick and high heels. Sister Benedict wore sophisticated communication devices, all, of course, in the service of the Lord.
While the Sister didn’t watch much television beyond Duke Hamblin, she thought she knew enough about it to dismiss it as ephemera. She was wrong. I’ve been wasting my time, she thought, with that blog. This is still where America’s heart beats.
The Sister had received nearly fifty pieces of fan mail. A few were not unlike the misanthropic messages posted to christscadets.blogspot.com—mean and nasty people with disdain for God and too much time on their hands—but some were simply wonderful.
A senior citizen in Boston sent her a blessing, thanking her for helping to prepare Jared’s soul for the next world. A married couple in Idaho encouraged her to impart some religion to the Stone daughters (a goal with which the Sister heartily agreed). A teenage girl in Indiana called her an inspiration.
Me, she thought, inspiring young girls all over the country. It was overwhelming.
She had even been contacted by an agent. Her immediate reaction was to scoff at the idea. She, the Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, should have an agent? Ridiculous.
Or was it?
Yes, an agent, she thought. I can bring the message of the Lord to people everywhere. It can be my voice that lifts them up.
“All clear, Sister?” the voice from the control truck buzzed in her ear.
“All clear,” she said to her wrist, almost giggling as she did. Young Jacquelyn had left the room a few minutes earlier, and she and Jared were alone. Or as alone as two people can be when someone else is watching their every move.
The Sister thought that maybe she would use the opportunity to change Jared’s sheets, but the more she thought about television and her role in it, the more intrigued she became. The sheets could wait. She went to the kitchen to write a letter to that agent.
Sister Benedict Joan had stars in her eyes.
***
The moment had come.
Jackie and her mother and sister filed into Jared’s room and arranged themselves around his bed to watch that night’s episode of Life and Death. Sister Benedict, as she had done each night since she joined the Stone household, sat in a corner of the room, not giving the family privacy, but trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. No one said a word.
The episode began with Megan’s interview.
Jackie had to stop herself from chuckling as she watched. Megan had really laid it on thick.
“It was so awful,” she said, her face showing the emotion of a silent film star. “My mother said that if I didn’t leave with them, they would ship me to an all-girls private school and that I couldn’t be with my dad anymore. Now that he’s so close to the end, I didn’t know what to do, so I went.”