Fall Semester (27 page)

“Well...thank you...I’m guessing she told you it’s been a tough couple of days,” she said. Malcolm took in Erin’s creaseless charcoal dress pants and jacket, the crisp white blouse, and the bun that tamed her dark curls. Erin Gardner had clearly had time for a shower before going to work.

“Yes. It looks like it’s been very tough on her,” he said.

Malcolm had to admit to himself that despite her professional appearance, Maren’s mother looked quite tired. He stifled a sigh. He did not wish to be unkind to her, but he did want her to understand what the situation was doing to the girl they both loved.

For better or worse, Erin seemed to miss both his mood and the meaning of his words, but she nodded sadly.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and change. Maren was going to make dinner, but I’ll get it started for her.”

At this, his temper flared, but he kept it in check—just barely.

“Dinner is on its way, Erin,” he said. “I’ve taken care of that. That is, if pizza is alright.”

This surprised her, but he noted the look of relief in her eyes.

“Pizza is wonderful,” she said, beginning to smile, and looking in that moment so much like her daughter. “I can’t thank you enough....You didn’t have to, you know.”

Yes, I did.

“I wanted to. Believe me,” he said.

She gave him an appraising look before nodding and leaving the room. Malcolm took the opportunity to slip back upstairs and check on Maren. Perhaps she would let him dry her hair again....

The hallway was redolent with jasmine-scented steam, which had Malcolm smiling before he even approached the bedroom door. It was open just a crack, and although he hoped there would one day be a time when he would be welcome to simply enter, he protected the now by knocking softly.

When she did not answer, he chanced to open the door wider and was rewarded with a truly adorable sight. Wrapped in a lilac robe he recognized, Maren lay asleep on her belly, the bottoms of her feet and the back of her calves bare to him. The right side of her face was turned toward him, and her damp hair splayed over her back.

If the heavenly host had appeared at that moment and told him that it was his fate to simply stand sentry at her door and make sure no one disturbed her for the rest of eternity, he would not have complained. He would have stood and watched over her forever.

But time would not stop for either of them. He gave himself a moment to let the vision of her burn into his mind and then he crept back downstairs, hoping that she could rest at least another half-hour before dinner.

He reached the foyer just in time to see the delivery kid from Papa John’s approach the front door. Malcolm felt grateful that he did not have to fight Maren or anyone else in her family to pay for the meal. When he stepped into the living room holding the towering stack of pizzas, he found Maren’s parents were together, talking and holding hands. It did not pass his notice that the arm and leg restraints hung loose from the bed rails. The man looked too weak to put up any kind of fight, but, then again, weighing only 92 pounds at the end, his mother had flung a tray of meds clear across the room and shouted down her 19-year-old son until he’d almost wept.

“Evening, Mark,” Malcolm said, nodding to Maren’s father.

“Glad to see you, Malcolm....” The man’s voice was as thin as paper, and he looked weaker than a half-drowned child.

“You, too....Erin, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to put these in the oven to keep them warm until it’s time for dinner.”

“Of course, dear,” she said, smiling warmly.

Malcolm felt his cheeks color at the endearment, and as he set the oven to 200 degrees and tucked the pizzas inside, he tried to recall if J.J.’s mother, Sylvia, had ever treated him with such welcome. Outside of their first meeting at a family dinner and the wedding weekend itself, he and J.J. had visited them in Florida a total of three times, staying at a nearby hotel each visit.

Lane entered through the kitchen door just as Malcolm was admitting to himself that Maren’s family—despite their own faults—had far more in their favor than his ex in-laws and his own broken family. He nodded a greeting to Lane, inwardly smirking at the young man he had thought to envy only weeks before.

“Hey, man,” Lane said, smiling openly, looking over Malcolm’s shoulder. “Where’s Maren?”

Malcolm told himself that the question was simply because Lane had come upon him alone in the kitchen, but he couldn’t help but feel an irksome niggling at Lane’s seeming expectation to find his sister rooted on the spot, slaving over a family meal.

“She’s upstairs, resting,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even.

Lane nodded, knowingly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired, too,” he said.

Malcolm froze. He felt his anger marshaling its forces. The boy hadn’t just compared his work-a-day fatigue to his sister’s exhaustion, had he? Exhaustion that threatened to crush her after four days and nights beside their dying father? Malcolm took a breath and allowed for the possibility that he had missed something.

“Oh?” he inquired, hoping that the sound wasn’t dripping with sarcasm. Lane opened the refrigerator door and helped himself to an Abita Amber. He held one out to Malcolm, who shook his head.

“Yeah, I was slammed with clients today,” Lane said, rifling through a drawer and coming up with a bottle opener.
Clients?
Lane popped the lid and took a long swallow while Malcolm talked himself out of punching the boy in the teeth.

Malcolm paced across the kitchen and stopped at the entrance to the den, feeling trapped. His usual practice at most social gatherings would be to wander off by himself and find a quiet corner to stew in. This would not work here; it would be more than weird, yet he did not wish to intrude on Maren’s parents in the living room. He considered going back upstairs and simply watching Maren as she slept, but her family would probably assume that more than sleeping was going on.

He thought about simply making his goodbyes and promising to return tomorrow when Laurel came in through the kitchen door.

“Hey, Bros,” she said, acknowledging both men with a head bob and dropping an overnight bag on the floor.

Bros?

The salutation was so unexpected and so familiar that Malcolm felt his eyebrows leap. Yet he wasn’t offended; he was...amused.

And his amusement only grew when Lane mimed offense, turning his palms up at his younger sister in wonder.

“
Bros?
As in plural? I’ve been in your life for—oh, yeah...you’re
whole life
. You’ve known him a few days and he’s your bro, now???” Lane dropped his hands and turned to Malcolm, mock whispering. “No offense, bro. Just keepin’ it real.”

At this he laughed, wanting to stay irritated with Maren’s brother and finding it a challenge.

“None taken.”

“I can’t help it,” Laurel defended, going on as if Malcolm weren’t there. “He’s the first guy Maren’s brought around since I was in middle school. Plus, he’s earned it. Two trips to the hospital and hanging out at the parents’ house? Not a lot of fun.”

She gave him a conspiratorial look.

“Besides, Malcolm, my sister is crazy about you.”

Malcolm caught his breath, and he tried to tamp down on the delight that surely showed on his face. Knowing that Maren had feelings for him fed him with pure bliss; the fact that others knew and confirmed it made him incomparably proud.

“Please. Stop.” Lane affected a shudder. Laurel rolled her eyes at her brother’s squeamishness, but said nothing.

The three stared at each other until the silence became undeniably awkward. When Laurel finally spoke, her voice was only just above a whisper.

“So...how are things in there?” She tilted her head toward the living room and eyed both men in turn.

“I haven’t been in yet,” Lane admitted, taking another sip of his beer and lowering his gaze.

Malcolm realized that they were both afraid. Afraid to look at death up close, to see it as it unraveled their father, to be reminded of their own mortality. It was easier to hide. Easier to stay in the kitchen and tease each other.

Who could blame them? Likewise, Malcolm had wanted to hide from it with his mother, but he had not had a choice. Maren had given Lane and Laurel a choice. She was absorbing the brunt of it for them.

Did they know that she was just as afraid? He thought about her hesitation to walk through the hospital doors that first night. She had been terrified. But she had done it.

Malcolm folded his arms across his chest to restrain his impatience. Maren’s brother and sister both needed to grow up.

“Your father’s awake, and he and your mother were talking a moment ago. Things seemed...rather calm,” he said, doing his best to keep the condescension out of his voice. He remembered the abandoned restraints, but thought it better not to mention them.

Laurel eyed him, frowning in confusion.

“Maren’s not in there?” Her voice betrayed her disbelief, and Malcolm clenched his teeth and inhaled slowly.

“No. She’s getting some much needed rest.”

Laurel had the good grace to bite her lip and look a little guilty. Lane took a few cautious steps toward the entrance to the living room. He seemed to study the scene for a moment.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, gently. “How ya doing tonight?”

Malcolm could not make out the sick man’s reply, but it must have been an invitation because Lane turned to him and Laurel, beckoning.

“Come one, guys. Let’s move this party to the living room.”

Erin still sat beside the hospital bed on the far side of the room that had been cleared for the special purpose, but there was still a cluster of furniture around a low, square coffee table. After greeting their father with gentle embraces, Lane and Laurel gravitated toward the couch close to their parents, so Malcolm took the loveseat perpendicular to them, his back to the foyer and front door.

As warm and genuine as Malcolm knew the invitation was, he did not feel as though he belonged in the intimate family space—especially without Maren beside him. But he had not chosen his seat by accident; even if he wasn’t watching over Maren as she slept, he was still her sentinel. No one would go up and disturb her without encountering him, and for right now, he wanted her to sleep. So even if he felt grossly out of place, he was not planning to leave until Maren was in better shape.

He listened as Lane told his parents about his day, making jokes and easing them out of the discomfort of their sorrow. It was clear that this was his job. Comic relief. But, certainly, this meant that he would be ill-equipped to handle the grittier tasks of staying up all night subduing an addled father or cleaning up vomit.

Malcolm turned his attention to Laurel, who watched her brother and laughed, surreptitiously checking the expressions of both parents, making sure that the fragile peace they enjoyed still held. Even now, she seemed to sit forward as though on the edge of her seat. She was like a bird, ready to take flight at any hint of trouble.

He looked at Maren’s mother and tried to see her from her oldest daughter’s perspective. Erin clasped Mark’s hand. She welcomed the presence of her children—she even welcomed Malcolm—but she only had eyes for her husband. Worry and pain strained at the edges of her eyes, even as she wore a smile for the rest of them.

No, Malcolm could not blame her for allowing her daughter to bear so much of the burden. Erin Gardner was probably blind to that fact. The anger he’d felt earlier mellowed into something closer to hopelessness. No one was to blame for the way things were, but no one saw the toll it was taking on Maren—no one except him.

He had to say something. There was no other way to help her.

Mark had begun to drift off toward the end of one of Lane’s stories. The boy noticed and whispered a quip.

“I must be losing my touch,” he said. “I’m boring him.”

“You’re not boring me,” Mark mumbled, his eyes still closed. “I just have to go to work.”

Erin shook her head, pressing her lips together against a defeated smile.

“Just keep on, Lane, he’ll join us in a minute,” she said, sadly.

Lane looked at his father, but the spell was broken.

“I...don’t think there’s much more to tell,” he said, squirming awkwardly in his seat. Malcolm saw his chance and took it.

“I have something I’d like to say,” Malcolm blurted. Surprise registered on Erin’s face, and it was mirrored in the looks Lane and Laurel gave him.

“Of course, Malcolm. Go on,” Erin invited, her surprise giving way to amused curiosity.

“It’s about Maren,” he said. At this, both women smiled broadly, clearly imagining something else entirely, while Lane looked skeptical. Malcolm plowed ahead. “She needs your help. All of you.”

Erin frowned, and Laurel and Lane exchanged a glance.

“What do you mean?” Erin asked, her frown deepening.

Malcolm took a deep breath. He was betraying Maren’s trust. He knew this. But he was doing it to protect her. He was doing it because he loved her. And if he explained himself right, perhaps he could enlist her family in helping Maren without her quite knowing what he’d been up to. He’d face Maren’s ire if he had to, but why would it need to come to that?

“She’s missing a lot of school right now, and it could hurt her,” he explained. He raised his hand in a pacifying gesture and continued. “I know that this is a difficult time for everyone, but Maren has already sacrificed a lot, and if she puts her degree at risk, it could be something she regrets for the rest of her life.”

Laurel, looking mystified, was the first to speak up.

“But...Maren said she could take a few days off....Is she in trouble?” Laurel’s pretty frown looked so much like her sister’s that Malcolm felt himself soften.

“Not yet, but that’s what I’m trying to avoid,” he continued. “She can’t afford to miss the class she teaches tomorrow.”

Lane looked confused.

“She told me she was thinking of giving that up,” he said.

Malcolm blinked in surprise.

“Giving what up?!?” he blurted, leaning forward in his seat.

“Her teaching assistantship,” Lane explained. “She said it’s taking up too much of her time.”