around. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I mind very much.” He pulled the door open and stepped out into the squad room. Glancing around, he spotted the back door that led out to the alley behind the building, and started toward it. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room following him, but no one spoke.
Phillip slipped quietly into the room at the clinic. Carolyn, her face pale, looked up at him from her chair next to the bed in which Beth lay sleeping, but made no attempt to rise. He could see by the redness of her eyes that she had been crying. A damp handkerchief was still clutched in her left hand. With her right, she held her daughter’s hand. He moved around the bed, and leaned over to kiss his wife’s forehead.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Asleep,” Carolyn sighed. “Finally. They had to give her a shot. She didn’t want one, but she finally gave in.”
Phillip’s sympathetic smile slowly faded into a look of grim determination. “And maybe that’s the problem,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe she’s always given in too easily.”
Carolyn looked up at him dazedly. “Given in? Phillip, what are you talking about?”
Phillip shook his head as if trying to clear it of unwanted thoughts. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve just been thinking, that’s all. And I’m not liking what I’m thinking.” He hesitated, then decided there was no point in putting it off. “We were wrong to send her to Alan,” he said.
Carolyn swallowed, and for a moment Phillip was afraid she was going to start crying again, but then she recovered herself. “Phillip, will you please tell me what you’re talking about? I just don’t understand. Alan’s dead, and Beth keeps saying she killed him, and now you say—” And then a thought struck her, and her face paled. “Phillip,” she whispered, “you don’t believe she had anything to do—”
“Of course not,” Phillip assured her immediately. “I didn’t from the first minute she said it, and I’d hoped you hadn’t even heard it. Norm Adcock is positive it was an accident. He says there’s no way Beth could have caused Alan’s fall. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.”
Carolyn relaxed just a little. “Then what are you talking about?”
Phillip replied, “The more I think about it, the more I keep thinking that this whole mess might not have happened if Beth weren’t so damned determined to try to please everyone. Which,” he added bitterly, “is a trait she inherited from her father, God rest his soul.”
Now Carolyn’s tears did overflow. “Will you please tell me what you’re talking about?” she begged.
Suddenly Beth stirred in the bed, and Phillip reached down to stroke her forehead. Still asleep, she reached up and clutched his hand in her own for a moment, then let it go and rolled over. After a few more seconds had passed, she was sleeping peacefully once again.
“Come on,” Phillip said quietly, drawing Carolyn to her feet. “Let’s find someplace where we can talk.”
He led her out of the room, then spoke to the duty nurse, who let them into a vacant office. Phillip guided Carolyn to a chair, then paced the little room for a moment, wondering where to start.
“I keep wondering why they were there at all, at that time of the afternoon,” Phillip finally said. “The men had gone home an hour earlier, but they were still there. Anybody else would have knocked off, but not Alan. I’d asked him to rush the schedule, and instead of telling me he couldn’t, he just went ahead and did it. He’s been working late every day, and working on weekends, too. And on top of that, we dumped Beth on him.”
Carolyn gasped, her eyes widening. “We didn’t dump her,” she protested. “You know what the situation was like at home. And it was just getting worse.”
“I know,” Phillip agreed. “But did either of us stop to think about the situation at Alan’s? Carolyn, we know what’s been going on, and all we’ve done is tell ourselves it would blow over. But what can the last six weeks have been like for Beth? No friends—every kid in town down on her—spending all her time in the mill because she had no place else to go! My God, she must have been out of her mind with loneliness. And she wouldn’t complain, either. Not her. All she ever wanted was for people to love her, but none of us ever managed