Life Support

by Robert Whitlow

  Alexia was shocked. “But—”

  Leggitt cut her off. “There’s no room for further discussion. I’m sorry for your decision, but you left me no other choice. The past few weeks have shown the basic incompatability of your practice with the main business of the firm. Simpson, Vox, now this. It would have ended sooner or later.”

  He stood up, stepped to the door, and opened it. Still numb, Alexia rose to her feet. As she walked blindly down the hall to her office, she heard the receptionist page her on the building intercom. Eleanor Vox was on line six.

  Alexia ignored the page.

  When she reached Gwen’s desk, the secretary pulled a letter from the printer and said, “Mrs. Vox just called. I put it into your voice mail.”

  Alexia didn’t respond for a few seconds, and Gwen looked up. At the sight of Alexia’s face, she asked, “What happened?”

  Alexia glanced at the door to Leonard Mitchell’s office. It was closed.

  “Mr. Leggitt fired me,” she said flatly. “He told me to clean out my desk and leave the office.”

  Gwen gasped. “No!”

  Alexia’s voice began to regain its intensity. “I have to leave immediately, but I’m not going to abandon my clients. Run a printout of my active cases with phone numbers and addresses. I’ll need to contact my clients over the next few days and sort out what I’m going to do.”

  For the first time since she’d known Gwen, the secretary was speechless.

  “He said it was inevitable,” Alexia continued. “My practice doesn’t mesh with the firm’s primary emphasis.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Gwen sputtered. “It had to do with Rena Richardson, didn’t it?”

  Alexia nodded. “That’s the immediate reason for the blowup. But I can’t talk about it.”

  Before Gwen could get up a head of steam, Alexia retreated into her office, closed the door, and leaned against it. She’d never been fired in her life. Since her first job as a sixteen-year-old clerk in a women’s dress shop through part-time work during college and law school, she had always received nothing but praise and promotion from her supervisors. She was a lifelong overachiever who conquered every obstacle. Until now.

  She glanced around her office. She’d taken a lot of pride in creating a workplace that reflected herself. Most first-time visitors remarked about the variety of items on display, and Alexia often took time to tell at least one story about a picture or artifact. In a few curt sentences, Ralph Leggitt had demolished everything she’d built over the past six years. Now, there was nothing left to do but pack up her trinkets and put them in the trunk of her car.

  When she opened her office door to get some empty boxes from the copy room, Gwen turned around, and Alexia could see that she’d been crying.

  “Gwen, don’t do that.”

  “If I don’t cry, I might march down to Ralph Leggitt’s office and stab him with your letter opener! I’ve worked with a lot of lawyers, and you’re the most decent, honest attorney I’ve ever known. You care about your clients; you know what you’re doing on your cases—”

  “Please, stop!” Alexia interrupted. “I appreciate you, too, but this is making it worse. I need to get out of here so I can decide what to do.”

  Gwen bit her lip. “Okay.”

  “I’m going to get some empty boxes. Please print out the information I need about the clients.”

  The copy room was on the other side of the reception area. As she passed through the room, Alexia looked at the pictures of the lawyers hanging on the wall. She’d done everything right to advance along the partnership track at Leggitt & Freeman except compromise her ethical convictions. The space she’d reserved for herself would go to someone else. If a woman ever became a partner at Leggitt & Freeman, it wouldn’t be Alexia Lindale.

  21

  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

  PROVERBS 13:12

  By the time Alexia had packed her first box and carried it to her car, the news of her termination had rippled from one end of the law firm to the other. Several secretaries looked away when she walked by. Others met her gaze with a shake of the head or a quiet word of sympathy.

  Leggitt’s paralegal came by her office and told her not to take any files from her office. Alexia ignored her. She knew the rules. All her clients had signed an agreement for legal representation with Leggitt & Freeman; however, Ralph Leggitt couldn’t prevent a client from following Alexia if she went to work for herself or with another firm. The state bar prohibited restrictions against a client’s freedom to select a lawyer, and so long as Alexia paid the correct percentage of the fee earned to Leggitt & Freeman, her former employers couldn’t complain.

  On her second trip to the car, Alexia passed the open door of Ken Pinchot’s office. The litigation partner was on the phone, and she heard him laughing. The sound was a harsh reminder that life went on at the firm for others even if hers was ending. Returning to her office, she noticed that Leonard Mitchell’s door was closed, and she asked Gwen if he knew what had happened. The secretary nodded.

  “Mr. Leggitt sent an e-mail to the partners as soon as you left his office.”

  “How do you know?” Alexia asked.

  Gwen shrugged. “I went in on Leonard’s screen name and read it. I know his password.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Nothing much. Just that he had terminated you and would provide the details at the firm lunch on Wednesday.”

  Every Wednesday, the partners ate a catered meal in Ralph Leggitt’s office. Alexia suspected the meetings were a mixture of fraternity bull session and board of directors meeting.

  “Do you have the list of clients ready?” she asked.

  Gwen handed Alexia a large, flat envelope. “It’s all in here. There is another copy for Mr. Leggitt. Is he going to contact the clients and try to get them to stay with the firm?”

  Alexia shook her head. “I don’t think anyone here wants my clientele, but I’ll have to let them know something soon. Keep the correspondence organized until I make up my mind.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “I’m going to pick up my pets and go home. After that, I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”

  Gwen was silent for a moment. “I don’t trust my thoughts.”

  “Me, either.”

  Alexia put the last box in the trunk of her car and looked back at the building where she’d spent most of her waking hours since moving to Santee. She remembered her first day as a nervous young attorney who didn’t know how to enter a client number in order to operate the copy machine until Gwen came to her rescue. It was the beginning of their friendship. Much had happened since that day: her first deposition, dictating letters without writing a rough draft, her first jury trial, the congratulations of other attorneys when she won a big case. Most of the significant events of the past six years had been intimately connected with the people in the office that had been at the center of her universe. Now, it suddenly looked small.

  Alone in the privacy of her car and shielded from curious eyes, Alexia waited for tears but none came. She wasn’t the type of woman who made herself cry. She drove out of the parking lot without glancing in the rearview mirror. Like the ship in the Mediterranean, it was time to sail in a different direction.

  She called the kennel and listened to an answering machine message that Pat would be unavailable for at least two hours. With time on her hands, Alexia drove slowly through the center of Santee and thought about her future. She approached the courthouse. She saw two familiar faces: a young lawyer recently hired by another firm in town and an older woman employed at the clerk’s office. Alexia wondered when and how they would find out that she was no longer working for Leggitt & Freeman. The legal gossip network in Santee was faster than a computer modem, and within twenty-four hours scores of people would discuss what had happened to her. She took little comfort in the fact that within a week her firing would be old news, an
d another item would take its place in the information pipeline.

  As she passed the courthouse, she considered picking up her pets and driving to her parents’ condominium in Cocoa Beach to lick her wounds. Because she represented so many women who needed emergency legal care, a long grieving period wasn’t possible, but a temporary respite would be understandable. However, she quickly rejected the idea of a trip to Florida. Her parents had their own lives, and Alexia was too old to run home with a skinned knee.

  She turned down a side street where two other law firms were located. A Charleston firm seeking to tap into the deepening stream of money flowing into the area had rented an older building and turned it into an elegant office. The Charleston group’s presence made Ralph Leggitt nervous, and it would be a twist of the knife if she joined them. The other law firm was a group of three young male lawyers who had launched out on their own a couple of years before. They might want to add a woman with a healthy client base to the mix. Alexia knew she would have options, but what she needed was direction.

  She drove away from town toward Highway 17. When she reached McBee Road, she turned toward Sandy Flats Church. It was earlier in the day than the times when she’d wandered into Ted Morgan’s practice sessions, and the sanctuary would be a quiet place to think.

  When she pulled into the church parking lot, she saw Ted Morgan on a ladder, painting the trim of an old, white house on the property. He saw her and waved. Seeing his face made Alexia smile. She needed contact with a decent human being.

  “Another masterpiece?” she called out as she stepped from her car.

  “In the works,” he answered.

  Ted climbed down the ladder. He was wearing white painter’s overalls with a collection of colors from different jobs.

  “Are you still practicing the piano?” she asked.

  Ted nodded. “Yes, I suspect it’s like law practice. You never get it exactly right.” Alexia didn’t want to discuss the law and decided on a quick exit.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ll be going. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

  Ted wiped his face with a red bandanna that he took from his back pocket.

  “No. I’m thirsty and ready for a break. Would you like some lemonade?”

  Alexia hesitated. Ted didn’t wait for an answer. “Come inside,” he said and walked toward the front door.

  Alexia slowly followed him into the old house. The wooden floors creaked under her feet. The plaster walls were painted in pale pastels.

  “For about a hundred years this was the parsonage where every pastor of the church lived,” Ted said. “The senior minister now lives in a house in the Dune View community.”

  “I’m familiar with it. Nice area.”

  “Yeah, but this house has its charms. Have a look around while I wash up.”

  Alexia entered the living room. It was Spartan and functional, not surprising for a bachelor. On the mantel above the fireplace she saw a picture of a young woman leaning against a tree. She stepped closer for a better look. If it was the minister’s daughter, the young woman’s mother contributed the most to her appearance. The eyes and hair were dark and the cheekbones high, but the mouth and smile were taken directly from Ted Morgan.

  Ted stuck his head around the corner. “Do you want to help me make the lemonade?”

  “Sure.”

  The kitchen was at the rear of the house. There was a bank of windows over the sink that gave a panoramic view of the church graveyard. Alexia looked outside while she washed her hands.

  “That’s a happy scene,” she said. “Rows and rows of tombstones.”

  “Only if you don’t like graveyards.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Not in a morbid way, but this one has so many old graves that I don’t think about the fact that the people are dead. I’m more interested in finding out how they lived when they were alive.”

  Alexia dried her hands with a towel. “Are any famous people buried here?”

  “A former U.S. senator and at least twenty men who fought in the Civil War. The soldiers’ tombstones list their rank and regiment even if they died many years after the war ended. There’s also the tombstone of one of the earliest missionaries to the local Indians. He and his wife lived along the Santee River in the 1720s.”

  Alexia dried her hands with a towel. There was a large bowl filled with lemons on the counter. Ted handed a knife to Alexia.

  “Start cutting them in two while I set up the juicer. We’ll need about six or seven.”

  “Do you always keep so many lemons on hand?” she asked.

  “Usually. I drink it year round.”

  While Alexia sliced the lemons, Ted opened a cabinet door and took out the juicer. He plugged it in and pressed a lemon over a device that spun around rapidly until the juice ran into a trough and down into a container. When all the juice was collected, he poured it into a pitcher filled with ice and water. He took out a canister of sugar and dumped in two generous scoops.

  “Don’t ask me how much sugar I’m putting in,” he said. “It’s better not to think about it. The end result is what counts.”

  He took two cut-glass tumblers from a cabinet and poured a glass for Alexia and himself. He handed one to Alexia then held his up in the air.

  “To Russian composers,” he said.

  “And those who play their music,” Alexia responded.

  They clinked glasses, and Alexia took a sip.

  “This is good,” she said. “The last time I drank something like this was at my grandmother’s house in Ohio. She was like you.”

  “She loved lemonade?”

  “No, she was religious. She went to church all the time.”

  A small, rectangular wooden table stood against one wall of the kitchen. Ted sat at one end and Alexia at the other.

  “Is that a picture of your daughter in the living room?” Alexia asked.

  “Yes. She’s twenty-two now and living in New York. She graduated from Juilliard and plays the viola.”

  “With the New York Philharmonic?”

  Ted laughed. “Maybe someday. She is doing ensemble work and looking for a job with a symphony somewhere in the U.S.”

  “And her mother?”

  “Lives in California. We’ve been divorced for many years.”

  Alexia took a sip of lemonade and wondered what about Ted Morgan would convince a woman to divorce him. He seemed like a nice man, but male flaws emerge as surely as a daily growth of beard. She thought of another question but stifled it. She was a guest in Ted’s home, not cross-examining him on the witness stand. She took another drink and wondered what to talk about since the minister apparently wasn’t going to hold up his end of the conversation.

  “I just returned from France,” she said. “I visited an old church with stained-glass windows. It was a beautiful place, but none of the windows had a figure who looked directly at me.”

  Ted smiled. “Interesting.”

  Alexia looked at her glass. If she took a few quick gulps, she could be on her way. She raised the glass and took a long drink. The tart juice made the edges of her tongue tingle. She raised it again and drank until the remaining ice cubes touched her lips. The last drops were sweet with extra sugar.

  “Thanks for the lemonade,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Alexia stood up. Ted stayed seated and leaned back in his chair.

  “Before you leave,” he said, “do you want to tell me why you came by the church?”

  “Oh, I was going to spend a few minutes alone in the sanctuary.”

  “Come anytime. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  It wasn’t a big lie, but immediately Alexia felt guilty. The minister had been kind to her and deserved the truth.

  “Actually,” she continued slowly, “I lost my job this morning and didn’t have any place to go for a couple of hours. I was going to sit in the sanctuary and try to sort through what hap
pened.”

  Ted knit his forehead and looked at her with compassion. “I thought you were upset but didn’t know why,” he said.

  “Really?” Alexia asked in surprise. “I didn’t think it was obvious.”

  “Sometimes I can tell when a person is troubled. It’s like a note out of tune.”

  Alexia felt tears suddenly welling up in her eyes. She’d been stoic when leaving the office, but in the presence of the minister her sorrow rose to the surface. She wanted to weep and pour out her heart to Ted Morgan at the same time.

  “I’m sorry. This isn’t like me.”

  Ted stood. “Why don’t you go to the sanctuary? That’s why you came. We can talk later if you want to. I’ll be painting the house for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Alexia nodded and turned away before the first tear ran down her cheek into the corner of her mouth in salty contrast to the lingering sweetness of the lemonade. Her vision blurry, she grabbed a handful of tissues from a box in the living room as she fled from the house.

  Her feet crunched across the broken seashells of the church parking lot. Inside the sanctuary she let the hot tears flow unhindered. She didn’t sob. It wasn’t hysteria. It was a release of pent-up feelings by a woman who had made emotional restraint one of the bulwarks of her personality. She sat on the pew nearest the piano and let the disappointment flow from her eyes. Spending the rest of her legal career in close proximity to Ralph Leggitt and Leonard Mitchell would not have been occupational bliss, but she had devoted six years of her life toward achieving a goal that was now impossible to attain. Disappointment was inevitable.

  By the third tissue, she began to calm down. Drying her eyes, she looked around the sanctuary. It was a quiet and beautiful place. Ted Morgan and others like him felt at home here; she was still a stranger. But even as a stranger, she felt welcome. Her impulsive decision to stop by the church had been right. She needed a place of peace and protection, a sanctuary where her feelings could be released in safety.

  And Ted Morgan was a rarity—a good man. She needed the nudge he provided to release the pent-up dam of her feelings, and she sensed that even now he stood on guard outside to protect her time alone in the sanctuary. She barely knew Ted, but he’d already shown more concern for her as a person than anyone at Leggitt & Freeman except Gwen. The minister showed more facets than musical talent.