And just as quickly as she’d appeared, Kelsey hopped up. “I think I can sleep again now, okay?”
Mark stood. “I’ll tuck you in.”
“That’s okay,” Kelsey shook her head. “You and Meredith can go back to what you were doing.” With an impish, although exhausted grin, she turned and headed down the hall.
A couple of seconds later, holding hands while they listened for Kelsey to settle in, Mark and Meredith could hear her telling Gilda that everything was going to be fine now. They were finally getting the right mom.
Meredith’s spirit soared.
“THIS IS Angela Liddy with KNLD news, with a disturbing top story tonight. Washington County district attorney Larry Barnett was arrested this afternoon after his eight-year-old son came to school with bruises all over his body. The boy claimed to have fallen down a flight of stairs until his mother called Thomas’s former teacher, Meredith Foster. In a remarkable interview with the boy and police detectives, in which Ms. Foster merely sat in the room and told the boy repeatedly that it was okay to tell the truth, it was learned that Barnett had physically abused both his wife and son on numerous occasions—”
“And Ms. Foster,” Mark broke in. “Or, Mrs. Shepherd for those who care to get it right, has now been offered reemployment at Lincoln Elementary School where she will be driving her adorable fifth-grade daughter to and from class every day when school resumes in the fall…”
Meredith shivered as his gravelly voice sounded in her ear. He slid his arms around her.
“What are you doing watching that crap?” he asked, pointing to the television she’d turned on in their bedroom while she waited for him to brush his teeth and come to bed. “News depresses you.”
“Yeah.” She leaned back against him, holding his hands. “But sometimes you just have to hear it for yourself to believe it.”
“Not you, my love,” Mark said, turning her around. “You’ve got the inside track….”