Chapter 7: Poor Lee

Come Saturday afternoon, Dotty and the boys arrived back at the house. As Dotty walked in, she began to call out Amanda's name but stopped in midstream as she noticed her sprawled out on the couch, eyes closed. "Boys, quiet," she cautioned, "your mother is sleeping, go on up to your room."

'Ah Grandma!" Philip bellowed.

"Don't ah me, go on up; I'll be up in a minute."

Dotty leaned in and looked down at Amanda who appeared to have a frown upon her face as she slept along with worry lines that spread across her forehead. "Now, I wonder what she is thinking about so intensely, in her sleep." Dotty said out loud quietly. Well, I sure hope it doesn't have anything to do with Lee, she thought to herself. Dotty knew for a fact that Amanda had went over there last night and she hadn't come home before she and the boys had left this morning. She had gathered that they'd had a fight that night at dinner, but she'd hoped that they would reconcile by the time she'd come home. Oh, well, perhaps Amanda would tell her about it later.

With that thought in her mind, she went on up to check on the boys before she gave some thought to dinner.

/

Lee struggled to spend the remainder of the weekend with is usual plans and not give the conversation he and Amanda another thought. He did pretty good keeping busy by doing his usual chores dropping off dry cleaning, having his car cleaned, light grocery shopping and some take out for an early dinner, but by 6 o'clock he'd ran out of things to do. He lay on the couch with the newspaper in his hands; but he kept reading the same line over and over. He put the paper aside and picked up the phone several times and started to dial Amanda's number but each time, he hung up before he could complete the call. What exactly was it he was going to say? She could be pretty stubborn and there just wasn't any talking to her when she was like this.

If only he could talk to someone else about it. There was his uncle but Lee had never really been able to talk to him. His uncle would most likely find a way to make the whole thing Lee's fault, like saying something to the fact that Lee was to blame, that he pushed too much or something like that and then they would argue and stop talking to one another and where would that leave him? It would leave him just where he was already; brokenhearted. Then suddenly it came to him…Billy. Lee quickly dialed Billy's number. Billy picked up right away.

"Hello."

"Hey Billy…it's Lee…I'm sorry to bother you on a Saturday…"

"Hey Scarecrow, what's up? It's no bother."

"Well, I was wondering if I could come over and talk to you about a situation with Amanda."

"Sure, Jeanie and the kids are out anyway, not that matters, but we can have some privacy."

"Thanks, I'm on my way now."

"Okay."

/

By the afternoon, Amanda awakened to the sound of her mother and the boys. Though Amanda put on a pretty good show, Dotty could see right through her. Amanda was attentive to the boys and even asked how the rummage sell had went but by dinner time, Amanda hardly touched her food and Dotty couldn't take anymore.

"Amanda, are you alright?"

"Yes, mother, why do you ask?"

"Because you hardly touched your food, though you interacted with the boys, you seem…."

"Seem what?"

"Lackluster. You are never lackluster about anything; you are very enthusiastic about just about everything."

"Mother, nothing happened, I'm just tired."

"Well, are you going to tell me about what happened between you and Lee?"

"Mother, I'm fine. Lee is fine."

"Yeah, but are you and Lee fine?" Dotty pressed on.

"Mother!"

"Fine." Dotty said and held her hands up.

"I'm going to go up and see what the boys are doing. They seem awfully quiet."

Well, Dotty was sure going to have to find out what exactly was going on.

/

Dotty sat down on the couch and as she sipped her tea, she gave some thought to Amanda's relationship with Lee Stetson or whatever his name really was. She was pretty sure that when Amanda first introduced them, that Amanda had used some other name. But she digressed in her own thinking because what she really wanted to know was when was Amanda going to come clean about the nature of work that she and Lee did?