Dada: Chapter 4a

   "Hello, Mrs. Hemphill.  I was just here to discuss some leave with Mr. Rogers, so if you wuld be so kind as to leave so we can ..." I got cut off.
   "Oh, we will talk about leaving, Mr. Burton.  Your little bout of lateness is going to be the final straw.  No one with such a low regard to professionalism as you deserves a place at my business."
   Actually, it is more her husband's, but I don't want to interrupt her.
   "How can you think that you even will have a job after coming in two hours late?  Well, nothing to say."  she added.
   "Actually, I connected my manager, as well as Mr. Rogers and others last night via email, text, and voice-mail that I would be coming in late today.  Admittedly, I thought I would be back before now, but the situation at the court house took longer than I imagined."
  "The court house?  What trouble did you get into now?  I would hazard a guess it is something that would jeopardize your position here, otherwise you would have informed us sooner."  Hemphill was getting that smug look she always gets when she thinks she is better than someone else.
   "Look, this is a private matter that I would like to mention only with Human Resources.  I'm sure Mr. Rogers would agree with me on that."  I hated putting Bennie in such a situation, but I was sure he could handle it.
   "Mrs. Hemphill, Chris might be right.  Why don't you leave the office for a bit, while the two of us talk, and we might be able to come up with an explanation."  Ben quickly blurted out.
  "No!  If Mr. Burton has something to say, he should just come out and say it."  Hemphill stood up while talking, standing right in my face.  In her heels, she was almost as tall as me. just barely looking me in my eyes, albeit at an upward angle.
  "If you must know, my long-absent father, who never ever get to see me, has died.  And now, I am the guardian of the half-brother I never knew I had.  By law, I get some time off to adjust to this new situation.  And I am quite appalled by this intrusion into my personal life!"  As well as my personal space.
  "Now see here Mr. Burton, I do not take well to such a tone of voice.  You do not get to say when and how you get time off.  What do you say to that?" 
   "Actually, he's right. Anita."  A voice came from behind me.
   Only one person in his right mind would dare use Mrs. Hemphill's first name and hope to get away with it, unscathed, her husband Judge Aaron Hemphill.
   "Under the Federal Family Leave Act, he is guaranteed time off.  In fact, threatening to fire him because of asking for time off could be considered illegal."  the Judge quickly added.
   "Hello, Judge Hemphill.  Nice to see you today," I spoke up, "How is everything going?"
  "My condolences. Everything is alright.  I just came here to pick up Anita for a brunch date.  Is that you brother eating up everything in the break room?"
  "Probably.  I had to bring him with me while I was going over some details about my time off."
  "How is he holding up?"  the Judge kindly asked.
   "Okay, I guess.  He isn't speaking much.  I think it might have to do with his voice cracking.  He just turned fourteen last month."
   "I guessed he was about that age, considering how he's eating.  Went through that three times with our boys.  Lucky for us that they were spaced out, or they wouldn't have eaten us out of house and home."
  Adrian, Alan, and Andrew Hemphill, and their sister Abigail (I know, all 'A's").  All three had worked at Blue Homestead.  The oldest, Adrian, was now the CFO at an investment firm in Florida.  Alan is a prosecuting attorney in Louisville.  I think he ran for office this week, but he may have lost.  Next comes Abigail; she works in the legal department at a regional food distributor in Cincy.  Andrew, the youngest, was the only one I actually met and worked with.  He became a literary agent the year after I started here.  He now spends most of his time in LA, getting authors paired with productions. 
   "Alan shot up over foot that summer when he was that age.  Ended up being 6' 3", only one of our boys taller than me.  Well, I think it was time for us to be going, Anita.  We don't want to keep the Martins waiting.  Goodbye Ben.  Again, my condolences Chris.  Hope to see you back soon."
  "Goodbye, Mr. Rogers."  Anita looked back with an icy stare, ignoring me completely as the Judge escorted his wife out of the office.
  "How in the world did you manage that?"  Bennie finally spoke up.
  I sat down in the chair that Hemphill hadn't been sitting it.
  "I asked the family court judge for more information before I left.  It's one of the reasons why I'm late.  I let it slip that I worked for the Judge, and found out that the two knew each other.  It wasn't hard to ask for a little favor, just to keep me out of trouble.  I honestly didn't think this would happen, though."
  "Well, you are lucky on this, at least, if not the rest.  It won't take me long to fix the proper forms.  Here, just start signing these." he passed me some papers as he talked.  "You should have something for me to look at too."
  "Oh, here you go." I passed him my own stack of forms.
  "This shouldn't take too long.  Fourteen, huh.  I guess I have another year or two before Ben goes through the same thing."
  Ben is his son, Bernard Rogers, Junior.  I know.  The poor kid will probably be teased a lot once he hits high school. 
  "You might want to go look in on him, before he does something stupid."
  " I know.  I think we will go downstairs so I can clear out any projects before leaving.  Can you bring these down."
  "Sure.  Vince should be back from lunch soon.  One of us will get these to you."
   "Thanks." I said as I stood up to leave the room.