Free White Picket Fences by Susan Meissner

work. I could ask her.”
    Neil exhaled. “Go ahead, ask her. Tell her what you saw for ten seconds this afternoon and tell her what we’ve seen together over the past thirteen years. See what she says. But I want you to promise me—and I mean this, Amanda—I want you to promise me you’ll say nothing to Chase about this and that you won’t make an appointment for him to see someone about it. Don’t do that to him. Not unless we’re forced to.”
    Several seconds passed before she said okay.
    He caressed her shoulder. “I just don’t want to spoil things for him. He has his whole life ahead of him.”
    She nodded. And Neil rose from the bed, walked into their master bathroom, and began to floss his teeth.
    Amanda sat forward at her desk, dropped her head in her hands, and rubbed her temples. What Neil had said made sense. But if Chase truly didn’t have troubling memories of the fire, why had he stood glassy eyed at the grill, staring at the flames as if hypnotized by them?
    She wished for the millionth time that she had been there that day, that she could’ve seen what Chase saw. Then she’d know.She’d know if what happened to him could’ve stayed with him and been smoldering there in his memory all this time. If it had been her turn to pick Chase up from the baby-sitter’s that day, he wouldn’t even have been there when the fire started. But she’d been eight months pregnant with Delcey and had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon. She and Neil had traded. By the time she found out about the fire, it had already swallowed the babysitter’s house.
    A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder, and Amanda jumped in her seat. She pulled her hands away from her face.
    “You okay?” Gary stood over her.
    She smiled awkwardly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “I could tell.”
    “I’m… I’m fine. I just have a few things on my mind. That’s all.”
    Gary set his Starbucks cup onto the desk opposite hers, sat down, and switched on his computer monitor. Today he wore Marvin the Martian on his tie. “How was the funeral? Everything go okay bringing your niece here?”
    “Oh yes. Everything went fine.”
    “How is she?”
    “What?”
    “Your niece. How is she?”
    “Okay, I guess. She’s quiet, a nice kid, but kind of aloof. She doesn’t want to be here.”
    “And no word from your brother yet, I take it?” He reached for his coffee and took a sip.
    “No.”
    Gary nodded and set his cup down, laughing lightly. “Ithought maybe she was already giving you a run for your money the way you looked when I came in.”
    Amanda absently put a pencil back in its holder. “I kind of wish that’s all it was.”
    “Oh?”
    Amanda felt her face color. She hadn’t planned on saying anything to Gary about what she saw at the church barbecue. “I don’t… It’s not something…”
    “Hey, none of my business.” Gary opened his briefcase and took out a lesson planner.
    “No, it’s all right. It’s just… Neil and I… I’m worried about Chase, actually.”
    “He’s your oldest?”
    “Yes.”
    “You think he’s in trouble?”
    Amanda shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Neil and I don’t…” Her voice fell away.
    “We don’t have to talk about this, Amanda. I shouldn’t have asked.” Gary opened the lesson planner and withdrew a mechanical pencil from the NBA cup on his desk.
    Amanda suddenly very much wanted his opinion. Gary could be objective, even more so than Becky could’ve been. He didn’t know Chase or Neil. And he had raised two sons. He’d already shared that he had weathered a few rough times with his boys. He could tell her if she was making too much of the incident at the picnic and lose nothing by telling her.
    “Actually,” she said, “I think I’d like your opinion on this. You’ve raised two sons.”
    “Uh…okay. Sure.”
    “Neil thinks I’m blowing this out of proportion, but I don’t think I am. I really don’t.”
    Gary casually folded his