Higher Hope

by Robert Whitlow

  “Yes, sir,” we both said.

  “Our representation of Jason Paulding has taken a new turn. Tami, your job is to find out what Dabney knows. Then, if she agrees to keep quiet, we’ll dismiss the lawsuit against her with prejudice. The newspaper reporter doesn’t know anything more than what she heard in the courtroom. That’s not enough to print a story.”

  “How am I supposed to convince her to keep quiet? Filing a lawsuit didn’t do it. And is it ethical to protect a client who’s committed a crime?”

  “No crime was committed,” Mr. Carpenter answered, his jaw set. “But the circumstances of the transaction would be embarrassing to Paulding and his business partners.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  Mr. Carpenter put his hands together in front of him. His face remained stern.

  “Tami, I’m asking, not ordering. Let me know in the morning.”

  Mr. Carpenter left the conference room. Julie turned to me.

  “Talk about a mission impossible. You know how at the beginning of the movies they ask the main character if he wants to accept—”

  My blank expression about movie trivia must have stopped her. “Anyway, it’s a long shot, but I’m sure you’ll give it a try.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “I don’t understand Dabney, but I know you.”

  We returned to the library where Vince and Zach were waiting for us. Julie downloaded her pent-up energy telling them about the hearing and our return to the office.

  “So, it’s up to Tami to save the day,” Julie concluded. “Didn’t you just know that’s where this case was going to end up? Of course, she has to pray about it.”

  “How can you be so flippant?” I asked. “These are real people whose lives are affected.”

  “Because you already take yourself too seriously and will get even more morose if you believe the future of humankind and civilization and the price of oil all depend on whether you do the right thing. All you can do is your best with God’s help. How people respond is up to them. That’s true in a lawsuit and in life.”

  “Julie,” Vince said, “you’re a philosopher, psychologist, and theologian all wrapped up into one.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “As serious as you are.”

  Zach turned to me. “If you decide to talk to Dabney, maybe I should go along.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I might need the moral support.”

  I WARMED UP THE SUPPER prepared by Gracie while Mrs. Fairmont napped in the den.

  “Did you have a nice day at work?” she asked when we sat down at the dining room table.

  “It was interesting,” I answered with a sigh.

  “So many people don’t really enjoy what they do for a living. They think a job is a way to collect a paycheck and good fringe benefits. Harry loved architecture because he could create something that would last. I got a sad call today. One of the first houses he designed in Savannah is going to be torn down to expand a parking lot for an office park. Can you imagine? We ought to drive over to the house so you can see it before it’s gone. Would you like to do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Fairmont was having a good day and kept me entertained with stories from the past during the meal. She didn’t mention seeing the condemned house again until I finished putting the dishes in the washer.

  “Are you ready to see the house?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you want me to drive?”

  “I think that would be safer,” she answered with a smile. “My independence probably stops at the street.”

  She gave directions as we left the historic district.

  “It was an innovative bungalow,” she said, telling me to turn at the next traffic light. “So many houses built for middle-class families in Savannah after World War II had no flair, but Harry studied what was being done with smaller homes in California and brought some of it here. I wish I could remember the name of the first couple that owned the house. I can see the wife’s face in my mind. Her husband had been an officer in the army.”

  We turned down a street that had gone through the transition from residential to commercial. At the end of the street was a single-story brick building that contained the offices of an insurance agency, a CPA firm, and two lawyers. A bulldozer was parked at the edge of the paved area. Orange ribbons marked the perimeter of another building.

  “This is it,” Mrs. Fairmont said.

  We turned into the parking lot. There was an architectural rendering of a building identical to the present one with a notice across the bottom that spaces would be available for lease in six months. Behind the sign were three houses, two that needed to be torn down and a third that wasn’t in as bad shape. Mrs. Fairmont pointed to the third house.

  “It’s run-down now, but it was very cute when it was owned by people who cared.”

  The house had an interesting roofline and a pop-out dormer on the second story. The bushes and landscaping had already been scooped from the earth. The lot was totally flat, but the house might as well have rested on the edge of a precipice.

  “Do you want to get out?” I asked.

  “No, and I’m not sure it was a good idea to come. It makes me sad. Change doesn’t always consider feelings. Let’s go.”

  I put the car in reverse. At the end of the road, Mrs. Fairmont told me to turn a different direction. A few blocks down the road I saw a sign for Gillespie Street. We were at the opposite end of the street from the first time Julie and I drove down it.

  “Can we turn here?” I asked.

  Mrs. Fairmont glanced up. “I wasn’t paying attention. We’re going the wrong way, but this will work if we circle around.”

  It was only a few hundred yards to the Southside Church. I slowed down and saw Sister Dabney sitting on the front porch of her house.

  “That’s the church I’ve been attending,” I said, peering out the window. “And there’s the minister’s house. She’s on the front porch.”

  Mrs. Fairmont looked out the window. “Let’s stop and say hello.”

  “No, ma’am. You need to get home.”

  “Where I don’t have anything to do except go to bed. You can turn around there,” Mrs. Fairmont said, pointing at a pharmacy parking lot.

  “Why?”

  “So we can be courteous to your minister. What’s her name?”

  “Reverend Dabney, but everyone calls her Sister Dabney. But I don’t think you want to—”

  “You’re sounding like Christine.”

  “She’s not a typical minister.”

  “All the more reason to say hello. I like to meet interesting people.

  And we’ve gone to all this trouble to leave the house for a ride.”

  Mrs. Fairmont’s jaw was set.

  “Okay, but only for a minute.”

  I pulled to a stop along the curb. Mrs. Fairmont’s shiny car looked out of place in the neighborhood. It was dusk and the streetlights were just coming on. When I got out of the car, I glanced toward the porch. Sister Dabney stopped rocking and leaned forward. I looked away and opened the door for Mrs. Fairmont. The old woman got out of the car and held my arm as we walked up the sidewalk to the house. Sister Dabney resumed rocking while we approached.

  “Good evening,” I said when we reached the front steps. “This is Mrs. Margaret Fairmont, the lady I live with. We were in the neighborhood and—”

  “Come join me,” Sister Dabney said, standing up.

  Mrs. Fairmont leaned on my arm as we climbed the three wooden steps to the narrow porch. She extended a jeweled hand to Sister Dabney, who took it in her plain rough one. Sister Dabney offered her rocking chair to Mrs. Fairmont.

  “My aunt Abigail had a porch full of rockers like this,” Mrs. Fairmont said when she sat down. “The whole family would sit and rock on evenings like this. Sometimes we ate homemade ice cream.”

  “I’ll get two chairs from the house,” Si
ster Dabney said.

  “May I do it?” I asked.

  Sister Dabney eyed me suspiciously for a moment, then opened the door.

  “Bring out the rocker in the living room and one of the ladder-back chairs.”

  I entered a small, simply furnished room. There was an old worn rug on the floor without a hint of an antique pedigree. I picked up a red rocking chair and carried it to the porch for Sister Dabney, then returned to get a simple wooden chair for myself. I sat so Mrs. Fairmont was in the middle. She was finishing her story about Aunt Abigail.

  “She eventually sold the house in Vernonburg and moved to a retirement community in Florida. The buyer wanted to keep the rockers. Every time I went by the house it made me want a bowl of ice cream.”

  “I hope we’re not intruding,” I said.

  “You’re here because of hope,” Sister Dabney answered cryptically.

  And with her words the same sensation I’d felt in Mr. Callahan’s kitchen suddenly permeated the front porch. I froze in my seat, not wanting to move.

  “You know, don’t you?” Sister Dabney asked, her eyes meeting mine.

  “Yes, ma’am. The same thing happened in Oscar Callahan’s kitchen—”

  “This isn’t a reminder of the past; it’s the presence for now,” she said, motioning toward Mrs. Fairmont. “For you and for her.”

  My mouth went dry at the thought that this might be Mrs. Fairmont’s time to die. I’d been anxious about the number of her days on earth since arriving in Savannah. God was good, but there were gaps in my trust. Mrs. Fairmont, not listening, was staring off into the shrinking distance.

  “What are you afraid of?” Sister Dabney asked me.

  “A lot of things,” I admitted. “And I have worries, too.”

  “All that is sin.”

  “I know.”

  “But honest confession is the door to forgiveness and freedom. The other day you helped me find the way out of a very dark place.”

  I started to say something self-deprecating but stopped.

  “God used me.”

  “And he’s used you to bless Mrs. Fairmont.”

  “That’s true,” Mrs. Fairmont said, coming back from wherever her mind had wandered and turning toward me. “I’m not sure what memories we take with us when we leave this life, but you’ll be part of the ones I keep.”

  “Did you hear that?” Sister Dabney asked me.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Fairmont folded her hands in her lap, closed her eyes, and rocked slowly.

  “There’s truth greater than your fears and worries,” Sister Dabney continued. “One of those truths is higher hope. Do you know what I mean?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s hope that can’t be destroyed by what happens on earth. Circumstances of life will challenge it, voices will deny it, but its walls can’t be breached unless we open the gate. It’s one of the three things that endure.”

  “Faith, hope, and love.”

  “That’s right. And you have to see it as a fortress, not a feeling; a place of security in heaven where the devil’s arrows can’t reach. The enemy has his strongholds. But God has prepared greater ones for his children. There’s where your mind has to dwell.”

  I’d always considered myself a determined person. Sister Dabney’s words challenged me.

  “I want to live in that place,” I said.

  “You can.”

  I glanced at Mrs. Fairmont, whose eyes remained closed.

  “And her?”

  “You’ve been part of bringing her to a higher hope, not so much for this life as the one to come.”

  “How much time does she have?”

  Sister Dabney smiled. “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. It’s not my place to issue that decree.”

  “Is this what you were going to tell me on the day of your deposition?”

  “That’s still rolling around inside. Do you want to know what I’ve heard so far?”

  “No, I’ll wait.”

  We sat in silence as a chorus of crickets welcomed the darkening sky. A few cars passed in the street. One, with its windows down, slowed. A young man yelled out the window, “The bulldozers will be here tomorrow to tear you down!”

  Sister Dabney kept rocking.

  “What’s going to happen to the church?” I asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” she answered.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t asking because of the case—”

  “But you can tell your boss I’ve washed my hands of Mr. Paulding and shaken the dust of his sin from my feet. The man who told me about your client’s shady business dealings won’t be giving any inter-views with the newspaper. He’s just grateful for the help I gave in healing his relationship with a runaway daughter.”

  “You’re not going to talk to anyone?”

  Sister Dabney pointed up. “Except to him.”

  “Where’s Flip?” Mrs. Fairmont asked.

  “He’s at your house.”

  “I want to see him,” she answered, pushing herself up from the rocker.

  I quickly reached out and steadied her.

  “Flip is her dog. He’s a Chihuahua.”

  “You’d better get back to him,” Sister Dabney said. “I’m glad you stopped by.”

  I helped Mrs. Fairmont down the steps. At the bottom she turned around.

  “I enjoyed your rocking chair. It’s so peaceful here.”

  I’d never associated Sister Dabney with peace.

  “Tell Oscar Callahan about our talk,” Sister Dabney said to me. “He may not know it, but the gift of God multiplied in my life when his father laid hands on me many years ago.”

  JULIE, VINCE, AND I sat in the waiting area for Mr. Braddock’s office. The partners were all assembled in the main conference room. It was the last day of our summer at the firm.

  “Is this what it’s like waiting on a jury?” I asked.

  “Not really, because our future probably wouldn’t be on the line,” Julie answered. “Do you think if they don’t want to offer a clerk a job, one of them drops a black ball in a little bag?”

  “They had a special meeting on Wednesday,” Vince replied.

  “And I bet Mr. Braddock showed you the minutes,” Julie shot back.

  Fred Godwin came to the doorway. Since the young partner always looked serious, there was no way to interpret the expression on his face.

  “Vince, we’re ready to meet with you,” he said.

  “Good luck,” Julie whispered. “You don’t need it.”

  Vince smiled awkwardly and looked at me as he left the room.

  “Vinny has a job sewn up,” Julie said. “Do you know what he’s really worried about?”

  “No.”

  “Whether you’re going to blackball him instead of Zach. I know they’re praying for you and each other and the rest of the universe, but deep down inside, each of them wants God to send an e-mail awarding him the grand prize as your potential soul mate.”

  “I’d like to get a message about that, too.”

  “Which means you’re going to have to come back to Savannah after graduation.”

  “God can speak to me anywhere.”

  “But there will be clearer reception when you’re in the right place.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted.

  “Yes!” Julie pumped her fist in the air. “It took all summer, but you finally agreed with me.”

  “Shut up.” I smiled. “Are you going to tell the partners you’ve decided to work with Maggie?”

  Julie shrugged. “In the one-in-a-million chance they offer me a job, I’ll let them know in writing later. I think it would be more professional to graciously thank them for the offer and promise to get back promptly. In my rejection letter, I may ask Mr. Carpenter to refer Jason Paulding to Maggie, since no one here specializes in criminal cases.”

  The dispute with Carl McKenzie’s company was only one of the problems faced by the developer. Since the motion heari
ng in front of Judge Cannon, the Dabney case had faded into the background after Paulding was sued by two different companies claiming he owed them money. And there were rumors the U.S. Attorney’s office considered him a “party of interest” in an investigation into illegally im­ported goods from South America.

  “Of course, the federal authorities would have to wait until she leaves the district attorney’s office,” Julie added. “If Maggie ends up with the case, it would be a bonus for you.”

  “How?”

  “You wouldn’t have to leave Mr. Paulding behind. Whether you work here or with us, he would be a client.”

  “That’s one very good reason not to return to Savannah.”

  “The Jason Pauldings of the world are everywhere.”

  “Yeah.”

  Julie pumped her fist again. “That’s two in a row.”

  I checked my watch.

  “What do you think they did with Vinny?”

  “Probably made him partner on the spot.”

  Fred Godwin appeared in the doorway. “Tami, we’re ready for you.”

  The lawyer left without waiting. Julie grabbed me by the arm.

  “If you don’t come back in thirty minutes, I’m going to call the police.”

  “No, call Sister Dabney.”

  I caught up with Godwin, who didn’t speak. When we reached the hallway for the conference room, I saw Mr. Braddock talking to Vince, who had a big smile on his face. The senior partner put his arm around Vince and led him a few steps down the hall. Seeing Vince happy made me feel good. He deserved every opportunity that came his way.

  The conference door opened and Zach came out. Since he wasn’t a partner, I looked at him in surprise. He saw me and pulled his ponytail.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered, holding back for a moment.

  “Answering a few personal questions.”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  “Nothing you can’t handle.”

  Before I could ask anything else, Godwin opened the door and cleared his throat.

  “There’s a seat for you across from Mr. Carpenter,” he said.

  I entered a room of men whose staring faces were all focused on me. The next step of my future would be determined by what lay behind those stares. I tried to smile but worried it came out crooked. Mr. Carpenter glanced down at a stack of papers on the table in front of him. I assumed those must be the evaluation forms and memos about me from the other lawyers in the firm.