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and cookies were free flowing in the living room and the kids would soon be high as
a kite on sugar, I figured I’d have an easy roam of the large house without any interruption. But as I left the room, I stole a glance at Fletcher. He was trying to give me a not so subtle clue as he kept dipping his head to the floor and pointing that one good eye toward the kitchen.
    The kitchen? I thought. He nodded, really pointing his head toward the floor as he did it.
    This is the first floor , I thought. He shook his head at me.
    There’s a basement? I thought while realizing that this entire mental conversation with him “defied logic.” Fletcher nodded.
    â€œLet’s sing Him our praises!” Christy exclaimed, as she led the motley collection of cookie-crunching characters into “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
    It was the perfect time to duck into the kitchen. Obviously, I didn’t have a lot of time to “feel” the scene as I usually do. My eyes traced the large yellow kitchen with the happy-face clock and the collector plates on the wall, each with a verse from the New Testament scrolled on them. Cheerful . That’s exactly how anyone would describe this kitchen. And neat. God, for a woman who had eleven special-needs kids, the kitchen was immaculate. The adage on the dish towel said it all: A clean home is a godly home. I’ve always thought that a clean home is a sign of a wasted life, but what the hell do I know?
    A series of eight engraved plaques covered the length of the wall above the sink. It seemed that Christy had been honored by eight different organizations in Denver for her “tireless dedication” to special-needs children. I’ve been presented with three plaques in my life — two for saving people’s lives — and I couldn’t tell you where in the hell they are located if you held a gun to my head.

    A large chalkboard filled the wall on the other side of the kitchen. On it was written: “What are we grateful for?” followed by ten answers that I was pretty sure Christy wrote in somewhat erratic handwriting. “Jesus” was the first answer, with “This Home” and “Christy” ranking numbers two and three, respectively. It was decent of Christy to give herself third billing after Jesus. It’s important to stay humble.
    I looked over to a door that held a calendar from her church along with eleven heart-shaped cutouts, each displaying a small photograph of a child in her care. I could understand why the school principal called her a saint. Christy was devoted, wasn’t she?
    Wasn’t she ?
    Or was she obsessed? Or controlling? Or manic? Or fucking nuts? Or all of the above?
    To the untrained eye, this kitchen was the epitome of a family- and God-centered home and the woman in the other room leading the group through the third verse of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was the quintessential queen of devout selflessness. But to me, it was organized chaos. Every item in that yellow room was a piece of a puzzle and the puzzle was starting to feel like madness incarnate.
    My eye traveled back to the door with the eleven heart-shaped cutouts and photos. They were joined one by one with a white satin ribbon that was perfectly stapled to the door to form an elegant arrangement. Christy was a perfectionist. That much I could verify. But a glance back to her handwriting on the chalkboard told me she was easily excitable and prone to sudden, possibly violent reactions to stress. Yes, I have studied graphology, and it’s come in damn handy at times. When you put a perfectionist who is prone to sudden, violent reactions in a situation where there is chaos every day, it can be like putting a match to gasoline.

    I was suddenly reminded of Fletcher’s nursery rhyme patter: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe… she had way too many children and she didn’t know what to