Sugar and Spice - Epilogue

 

EPILOGUE 

THE FOURTH GRADE class at HJPS was holding its Valentine’s Day party. The desks were in a circle. A heart-decorated box was in the center on a spare desk The teacher reached in and pulled out the envelopes naming the child whose address was on the outside.

Margaux Fournier had dreaded today. She had been so afraid that no one would send her a valentine. She did not know the teacher had made one out to each child and several anonymous ones just in case a child received none.

Margaux need not have worried. It was weird since she had overheard the murder plot. She knew from the news as well as the press outside the school something was being done about it.

Emma, Gloria and Juliana had disappeared, from school for a while in the fall then came back in January. Amanda and Clay never returned.

Three of Margaux’s valentines were from Emma, Gloria and Juliana. They weren’t friends, but they no longer taunted her without their ringleader.

After she had gone to the headmistress, the news channels had a story that matched what she had overheard. Her mother had talked about changing her schools, but was hesitant to create another upheaval in her life.

With Amanda gone, Margaux had begun to make friends. The conversation about the news casts died down. She just knew that school was better now.

***

“It’s lovely Amanda. Thank you.” Rob, her therapist, gently put the valentine back in its envelope. “I heard you worked really hard almost every day on making the valentines.”

She had used the paper doilies, red construction paper, regular paper, watercolors and colored pencils in the art department. From the time she was in kindergarten, she was told that she had real artistic talent far beyond her years.

“Don’t you want to put Happy Valentine’s Day on your cards?” Millie, the art therapist, asked.

Amanda had shaken her head. “It hides the design.” She didn’t say she would have preferred to write, “I Hope Your Valentine’s Day Sucks.” Being negative wouldn’t help get her out of McLean’s.

Only being sweet and being co-operative would do that. When her father had visited, he’d said that. He had been her only visitor. 

For the first few weeks no one had been allowed to visit. When he had come, she sat on his lap, played with the buttons on his suit jacket and looked into his eyes with what she hoped he took as adoration. Usually, it worked to get him to give whatever she wanted. It didn’t this time.

She asked one of the staff to mail her valentines to her mother, father, Gloria, Juliana, Emma and Clay. “Don’t put a return address on it. I want it to be anonymous,” she said.

The staff member took them to Rob. “Don’t mail them,” he said. Had Amanda known, she would have been furious. It wasn’t that she wanted to wish the recipients a Happy Valentine’s Day. She meant it as a warning.