Chapter 7

Bright and early Monday morning Derek is at work getting ready to face the day with a renewed sense of energy.

As he is going over his notes for a coming meeting he has in an hour he looks up and sees his baby sister Melanie talking to Casey. When she sees him looking, she smiles and waves. Casey turns around and sees Derek wave Melanie into the office.

As Melanie is walking in she says, “Where’s Megan?”

“She’s upstairs working out of Mister Denton’s office.”

“She got promoted over you?”

“No, Mister Denton had a heart attack, so Megan and I are running things until he returns. It was the least amount of maneuvering putting her up there. What’s up, little sister?”

Melanie, his beautiful, eighteen-year-old, brown-haired and brown eyed, sister gets a nervous look on her face, as she says, “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Always for you, Melanie. What’s up?”

She takes a seat and gathers herself and begins, “I want to join the Army.”

“That’s great! What’s the problem?”

“Don’t you think mom and dad will have a problem with it?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t mean the serving in the military part, but I’m supposed to go to college this autumn.”

“Well, you can always go to college after you do your stretch.”

“I was thinking I might want to do it as a career.”

“Well, I think that is great, but that is a decision you should wait to make until after you are there awhile and see what it is really like. So many people go into it with an idealized idea and come out of it scrambled because of it. You have to know going into it that it is going to change you and you must be willing to make that sacrifice and tradeoff.”

“Tradeoff?”

“Well, it will change you for the better, and if you end up taking another’s life it will diminish your own special light, but you just have to remind yourself you are doing it out of love and duty, not hatred.”

“Wow! I still want to serve.”

“Of course you do. You have a good heart with a true sense of honor.”

“Will you come to dinner next Saturday and be there for me as I tell mom and dad?”

“Oh, next Saturday? How about Sunday? That would work better for me.”

“Okay, mom and dad will be happy to see you.”

“Okay! Well, hey, little sister, I love you, but I got to get this day moving.”

They get up and hug. “Thank you, thank you, and thank you. See you next Sunday, big brother.”

Derek smiles and hugs her again. As soon as she leaves he calls Casey. Casey always likes to turn around and look at him through the glass as they are talking. “Yes sir.”

“How long until the meeting with the vice presidents?

“Twenty minutes, sir.”

“Alright, let me know when it’s five.”

“Yes sir.”

Not five minutes later his cell phone is ringing. “Hello.”

“Hi, is this Derek?”

“Hello Chrissy.” He would recognize that sweet voice anywhere.

“Hi.” He can just picture her smiling on the other end of the phone. “Derek, I wanted to let you know that I had a most wonderful time Saturday.”

“Well, thank you. As did I. I was actually going to call you in a day or two and see if you maybe wanted to have lunch.”

“Oh, that would be perfect. Maybe today?”

“Tomorrow would be better. Is everything okay?”

“Oh yes ... and no. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

“Do you know Liaison’s?”

“Yes, it’s one of my favorite restaurants.”

“Perfect, say one o’clock.”

“See you then.”

“Hey, Chrissy.”

“Yeah.”

“I really did have a wonderful time the other night.”

Almost sadly Chrissy says, “Yeah, me, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Derek thought he heard something in her voice, but nonetheless he was glad to hear from her.

{Beep}”Sir, the meeting is in five.”

Derek and Megan face the day with fortitude. It was a good idea to allow the vice presidents to have an input into how to proceed. Mister Denton’s first son Al is still trying to thwart every action as his pride is hurt for being passed over to run the company, but everything continues to move forward.