by Gail Dayton
"Decaf," Kate called from the kitchen. "I'm decaf all the way these days. The regular kind makes me jittery."
Eli wanted to laugh again, but Mom's glare made him decide against it. He didn't want her to stroke out on her birthday, especially not because of him.
He was pleasantly surprised by the meal. Kate and her fancy appetizers had him expecting something like stuffed duck with green squiggly things on top and unpronounceable, unrecognizable junk on the side. But she served plain roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy, garlicky green beans and carrots, and little fresh-baked rolls. The salad had some weird-looking leaves in it, but Eli had learned long ago not to turn his nose up at anything reputed to be edible, so he piled up his plate.
"This looks delicious, Kate," he said, handing the rolls off to Joey next to him at the end of the table opposite Mom. "And it smells even better."
"Why, thank you, Eli." Kate's startled pleasure made him wonder if anyone ever complimented her cooking, or if she just hadn't expected him to have any manners at all. He had manners. Just rusty ones.
"So, Marilyn," Norman said, before the gravy had made it all the way around the table, "have you decided on selling your house? We just had to take over the loan on a nice little place out in Monroeville. You could probably get it for the amount of the note."
"No, she's not selling her house," Mom said. "Julie grew up in that house. Of course she's not selling it."
"I might," Marilyn said.
Eli felt her tension and pressed his knee against hers, hidden under the table. She sat on his right, so he wasn't smacking her with his cast.
"I haven't made up my mind what I want to do about the house," she went on. "I just don't know for sure. The minute I decide, I'll let you know."
She put her hand in her lap like she was reaching for her napkin and touched Eli's knee instead. Thanking him for his silent support? Or telling him to back off? He moved his leg.
Sue started in next. "Are you still tutoring at that youth center? You know, if you want to work with teens, there's an opening for a teacher's aide at my high school. You wouldn't have to go down to that neighborhood."
Eli had tried himself to talk Marilyn out of going there, without much luck. Maybe Sue would have more.
"You'd also get paid for it," she added. "That can't hurt."
"I like working down there." Marilyn used the same arguments she'd used on Eli. "The kids need me."
"So do the kids at my school. There are kids all over town who need your kind of attention. Why do you have to go into that part of town?"
"Because I do. I like it."
"But it's so dangerous," Kate said.
"No, it's not," Marilyn retorted. "I'm perfectly--"
"Yes," Eli interrupted. "It is. Kate's right and you know it. It's dangerous down there." Especially now that Flash was causing trouble again.
What if the attack on him had been orchestrated by the Flashman? What if one of those men had seen Marilyn? What if they somehow connected her to him? Why hadn't he thought of this earlier in the week, when Teresa called? He had to convince Marilyn to stop this particular volunteer job, at least temporarily, and he'd use any tool he had to do it. Even the family that hated him.
"If you get into trouble down there again," he said, "I won't be able to help. Not stuck in a wheelchair."
"What? What's this?" Mom looked like she was about to jump out of her chair. "Did something happen, Marilyn?"
"No. Nothing happened." Now Marilyn was glaring at him too.
He didn't care. "It could have. If I hadn't been there."
"What are you talking about?" Mom demanded to know.
"Nothing." Marilyn's eyes were narrowed, her teeth grinding. Eli was in deep trouble here.
And digging himself deeper without a qualm. "Not all the kids in that neighborhood go to the center." He spoke only to Marilyn. "If you have to go down there, at least wait till I get my casts off, till I can go down there with you."
He could feel everyone at the table staring at him, but kept his attention on Marilyn, willing her to agree. Nothing else mattered. If she didn't give in, he'd have to tell her everything. Keeping Marilyn safe was more important than hiding his secrets.
"You're still going to be around then?" she asked. "After you get your casts off?"
That was what he said, wasn't it? He hadn't thought about it before he said it, so he thought about it now. Would he still be around? He'd offered, hadn't he? "Yeah," he said. "I'll be here. You willing to wait?"
Marilyn's mom made some kind of strangled noise. Everyone ignored her. At least Eli and Marilyn both did. He wasn't watching anyone else.
Marilyn took a deep breath and let it out slow. "I'll think about it."
"Good enough." Eli turned back to his meal.
Stunned silence continued around the table another few moments before Kate piped up with a bright comment about somebody away at college. For the rest of the meal, conversation centered around the three sisters' kids, all in college now that Marilyn's girl had started. One of Sue's kids was even in graduate school and married. That topic lasted pretty much till Kate brought out dessert. Cheesecake, with birthday candles and cherry topping on the side.
"Where did you go to college, Eli?" Mom asked, malice in her eyes even after the singing and candle-blowing-out.
"Mom--" Marilyn began.
"I didn't." Eli overrode her. "I didn't finish high school, as a matter of fact. I do have my equivalency."
Mom nodded and sat back, a smug look on her face saying "I knew he was an ignorant slob."
"I didn't go to college either, if you'll recall," Marilyn said.
"You did, too," Mom said.
"One year at Pittsburgh City College doesn't count." Marilyn took a plate of cheesecake and passed it to Eli who passed it on to Joey who passed it back because he'd been handed a plate from the other side of the table.
"It's a year more than I have," Eli said. "I thought about going a couple of times, but I never stayed any place long enough to do it."
"You ought to think about going back, Marilyn. Get your degree," Sue's husband said, heaping cherries on his cheesecake. The way Trey was going at it, Eli figured he'd be lucky to scrape the bowl for cherry-less sauce.
"A degree in what? Doing nothing?" Marilyn took the bowl of topping and passed it to Eli who decided to help himself before passing it on. There was a hungry light in Joey's eye.
"In whatever you want. You're interested in those kids at the youth center. Study education. Or sociology. Or just take classes until you figure out what you do want to study."
"What do you think I'm doing now?" Marilyn took the cherries back from Eli, leaving Joey reaching in vain.
"Flower arranging is not a real class," Sue said. "You need to study something substantial."
"What's wrong with flower arranging?" Kate sounded hurt. Eli figured her for the flowers on the table.
"Nothing." Sue patted Kate's hand. "Nothing at all, if you don't have to earn a living. You need to study something that will get you a good job."
"What if I want to be a florist? Then I'd need flower arranging, wouldn't I?" Marilyn said. "What difference does it make anyway? Julie's scholarship pays for books, tuition and fees, and Bill had insurance up to his eyebrows. That pays for everything else. Why do I need a job?"
"Don't you want something to do? What do you do with yourself all day?" Sue asked.
"I have plenty to do."
Mom made a rude noise and Eli almost choked on his cheesecake trying not to laugh. He knew what Mom thought Marilyn was doing. He wished. Desperately. Marilyn stepped on his foot under the table.
"Are you thinking about taking in invalids, doing home care as a career move?" Norman--Kate's husband, Eli reminded himself--said. "That requires some kind of certification doesn't it?"
Marilyn stepped harder on Eli's foot, daring him to say a word. He wanted to take her up on her dare, say something smart-assed about being an invalid and wanting
some of her home care, but decided against it. He didn't want casts on both legs.
"Maybe," she said. "But only if they're young, good-looking, and male."
Eli snorted cheesecake, trying to keep from laughing it all over the table. Mom looked like she was about to explode. Joey didn't try to hide his laugh, but he didn't have cheesecake in his mouth. He pounded Eli's back until he stopped coughing and Mom stopped looking like a lit firecracker.
"That isn't funny, Marilyn," Mom said.
"I thought it was pretty funny." Joey sank back in his chair under his mom's glare.
Eli leaned toward Marilyn. "I'm the only male invalid you get to keep," he murmured, hoping no one else could hear.
She raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
"You're all ridiculous," Mom pronounced. "Marilyn's not going back to college and she's not selling her house and she's not taking in invalids."
"I'm not?" Marilyn's eyebrows lowered and she narrowed her eyes. Eli had already learned that look meant trouble and he hadn't known her nearly as long as these people had. "Seems to me," she said, "that I've already taken one in, though he's not exactly an invalid. Just a trifle immobile."
"You're not," Mom said. "He's moving out and you're moving back home where you belong and you're going to stop all this craziness."
"All what craziness? If I was ever crazy, it was these past four years. My God, Mom, I could barely drag myself through most days. I don't think I was clinically depressed. Or who knows, maybe I was. I don't know. But I wasn't right. Life isn't supposed to be like that, just going through the motions." Marilyn didn't seem to be getting through to her mom who sat there without changing the scowl on her face.
She turned to her sisters. "You understand, don't you, Kate?" She reached a hand across the table. "You see that I had to make a change."
"But why such drastic changes?" Kate bit her lip, ignoring Marilyn's outstretched hand. "I mean, redecorating is one thing, but moving completely out of your house into a tiny apartment... That's not exactly--"
"Not exactly what? Sane?" Marilyn pulled her hand back. "Is that what you really think? That I've gone nuts? Crazy? Wacko?"
Eli pressed his leg tight against hers. He wanted to take her hand, but on the side nearest her he only had fingers encased in plaster and they were pointed the other way.
"You have to admit, Mare," Sue was saying. "Your behavior over the last several months hasn't been the most rational. We're worried about you."
"Now? You're worried about me now, when I finally see a little light in my day? And rational according to who? Who gets to decide what's rational or not? Where was all your worry when I was drowning? When I would sit down at my kitchen table after I sent Julie off to school and not move, not be aware time was passing until she got home again--where was your worry then? Was that rational behavior?"
"My God, Marilyn," Joey whispered. "I knew it was bad, but..."
Marilyn stretched her hand past Eli to her brother and he covered it with his. Eli didn't want to interfere with this sibling bonding, so he simply slid his good hand onto the table, ready for an opportunity.
"Grief is normal," Mom said. "I know about grief. Haven't I grieved in my life? Of course you're going to mourn. You lost your husband. You lost--"
Marilyn's head whipped around to her mother quick as a striking snake. Eli couldn't see her expression, but whatever it was, it was enough to shut Mom up. Why? What had Mom been about to say?
"But it's normal, Marilyn." Mom's silence lasted only a second or two. "This--this whatever you're doing now, it's not normal. Moving out of a perfectly good house into a box barely big enough to turn around in is crazy. Quitting a perfectly good job to flit around taking silly classes is crazy. Tutoring juvenile delinquents in a place where you could get mugged every time you walk to your car is crazy. Letting some strange man half your age move into your apartment and sleep in your bed is beyond crazy. It has to stop, Marilyn. It has to stop now."
"Why?"
Eli could hear the tears in Marilyn's voice, in the single word she spoke. He turned his hand over and insinuated it beneath hers where it lay covered by Joey's hand. Her hand lifted, letting him in, then gripped him tight.
"Why does it have to stop?" she demanded. "If it makes me happy, if it makes me feel sane and alive again when I haven't felt any of those things in so long--in years, Mom--why should I stop? Because of how it looks to other people? Who cares?"
"I care," Mom said. "We all care. About you, Marilyn."
"No, you don't." The tears were falling now. "If you did, you wouldn't have waited so long to show it. You wouldn't be acting like this now." Marilyn shook her head. "I'm sorry. I can't take any more of this. Come on, Eli. We're leaving."
She stood and left the dining room. Eli backed from the table, then paused.
"I won't let you hurt her anymore," he said. "If you need a ride to the store, Marilyn's mom, you call somebody else. She's not coming home again half-sick from the things you say to her. She's great just like she is, but you're all worried about how things affect you. Was it really like she said, after her Bill died? Nobody looked after her?"
He looked from one of Marilyn's relatives to the next. They all looked away, or else failed to meet his gaze at all. Except for Mom who glared at him like always.
"Well, I'm looking after her now," he said. "You can say whatever you want about me. Most of it's probably true. I deserve whatever I get. Marilyn doesn't. She's a good person. People like her don't come along very often. Believe me, I know. And I intend to protect her. From anyone I have to, in any way necessary. I will not let anything hurt her. Not anything."
Once more he tried to look Marilyn's family in the eye, and succeeded this time, taking satisfaction in their expressions of mingled surprise, alarm, and chagrin. Except, of course, for Mom who looked angrier than ever. And Joey, who looked surprised and pleased.
"Eli?" Marilyn's voice behind him made him back slowly from the table till he had room to turn his chair.
She was holding his coat, already wearing her own. He leaned forward and let her help him into it, then they proceeded out of the room, the sound of Joey's solo applause echoing behind them.
Their dramatic exit from the house was altered somewhat by the comic relief created in getting Eli and his wheelchair off the front porch. The direct reverse of the operation that got him onto the porch, it seemed twice as awkward, three times as laughable as the earlier balancing and thumping and clanking and hopping.
"That was fun," Marilyn said, as they started back down to her car, the brake on his wheelchair squealing as it slowed his speed on the slight slope.
"We'll have to do it again sometime." Eli winced at the screech but didn't dare let up on the brake. The street got steeper ahead. "Is five years too soon?"
Marilyn smiled, even as she shot him another one of her sharp, sidelong looks. "You won't be here in five years."
"I'll come back." He would, he realized. Marilyn had somehow become that important to him.
She had placed herself on the very short list of people he would come back for, from anywhere, for any reason. He would do whatever he had to in order to make sure she had what she needed, whether it was support in family situations or protection in bad neighborhoods. The only other people on that list were Pete and Fitz. Teresa had been on it once, but she'd been taking herself off for the last few years.
It didn't mean he was in love with her or anything. He'd never been in love with Teresa, so why would he be in love with Marilyn? But she was important. She mattered. That was enough.
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Marilyn got in the car after stowing the wheelchair in the back seat.
"I never do."
"Not ever?"
"Nope."
Marilyn studied him a long moment before she started the car. "You're telling me that you've kept every promise you ever made?" Outrageous as the claim seemed, she didn't find it that hard to believe.
"Every single o
ne." He met her gaze, held it. Something in the back of his pale eyes, like heated steel, made her shiver. Made her think that she didn't want to know what some of those promises might have been.
She turned away, put the car in gear and started down the hill. "You don't have to protect me from my family."
"No?" He sounded skeptical, casual. Like it didn't matter whether he believed her or not.
"They're my family."
"That means they can hurt you worse. Because you care more."
"They care about me." She knew they did. They just didn't understand.
"Then they should act like it."
"And you're the judge of whether they're acting like it?"
He twisted in the seat, trying to turn toward her, but was blocked by his oversized leg cast. "No, you are. It shows when you hurt, Marilyn."
She stopped at the sign at the bottom of the hill and Eli reached over to touch the twin lines rising from between her eyes onto her forehead. "Here," he said. "It shows here. And when I see it, I'm going to stop it."
"How?"
"However I have to. Even if I have to throw you over my lap and wheel you away."
Her laugh snuck up the back way and escaped. Crazy as he made her, Eli could always make her laugh too. "I thought the hero was supposed to ride a white horse," she said.
His smile faded. "I'm no hero. You'll have to make do with a wheelchair and a Harley."
Why was he so sensitive to the "hero" word, even in jokes? She'd noticed it before and didn't understand. "A Harley's just fine with me," she said, hoping to get his smile back.
"Good." His eyes smiled, if not his mouth. "It's all I got to offer."
He seemed to truly believe it, that he had nothing in himself worth offering to anyone. And yet, he'd stood up for her against her family. The people who were supposed to love her, no matter what. The hard edge in his voice when he'd said he wouldn't let anything hurt her still sent chills down her spine. He meant every word of it. He would look after her.
No one had looked after her in so long. Four years? More? The desperate isolation had eventually faded, but it left her empty. She didn't feel empty now. She felt warm. Content. Cared for. What would she do when he moved on?