The Guardian

by Dee Henderson

  “Now that I think about it—no. It’s his part of home that always comes along.”

  Jennifer set it back down. She gathered up drinking glasses, disposed of fast food sacks, tossed shoes into the bedroom. Marcus knew better than to suggest she leave it. If he let her deal with clutter for five minutes, she would be able to sit and talk. Make her sit with the room still a mess and she would fidget the entire time.

  “Is it the fact Quinn is less than neat about minor things the reason Lisa says no to his dinner invitations?”

  Jennifer glanced over at him. “Has Quinn been walking around with a puppy dog face after being turned down?”

  “Sadder than a hound dog. What’s Lisa’s problem?”

  “Kevin.”

  “I thought that was over months ago.”

  “That’s what we all thought. He must have caught her at a weak moment. She said yes to another date and came home with her jaw all rigid and her back up. I spent Thursday night with her and she was positively morose about the entire species of things male.”

  “I knew I should have paid that guy a visit after last time. I would have if Lisa hadn’t insisted I leave it alone.”

  “Don’t worry. Jack was going to say a few words on all the O’Malley’s behalf; I told Stephen to go along as Jack was a little hot under the collar. And I told him not to tell Lisa until after the fact.”

  “Good. Thank you. Lisa doesn’t deserve the jerks she gets in her life.” Marcus snapped his briefcase shut and moved it to the floor. “She needs Quinn. He will not laugh at or belittle her profession, and he won’t hurt her heart. He’s a little old for her, but he’s a guy with deep roots. She needs that kind of stability behind her. He won’t budge when she gets herself in trouble.”

  “She doesn’t want to live in the middle of nowhere.”

  “That’s it? That’s honestly why she’s been saying no?”

  “There’s that, and the fact he typically looks good enough to eat and most every woman in the room notices him.”

  “Minor problems.” Marcus understood Lisa. She was the only one in the family who had been cast away at birth, had spent her entire life in foster care. She was the most independent of the group; used to going her own way. She had never locked onto feeling like she belonged, so he and the rest of the O’Malleys had simply swallowed her up and made her a place.

  Frankly, if they wanted an adventure, they all knew the best one would be had by joining Lisa for a weekend. She was the fun in the family, and they all loved her. Marcus hated to learn she was hurting. “Think she’ll kill me if I send her some flowers?”

  “Marcus, haven’t you seen her scrapbook? She’s got a flower pressed from each bouquet you’ve ever sent her.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Jennifer laughed. “She’s sentimental, although she will kill me for saying it. Send her flowers, or better yet, why don’t you send her something for her ferret? Lisa had me in stitches Thursday evening laughing at the antics of her latest pet. She’s doting on that animal.”

  “Empty paper towel tubes still his favorite?”

  “Yes.”

  Marcus sank back into the sofa seat, feeling the tension drain away. “Jennifer, what’s going on with you? It’s been too long since we’ve really talked. I’ve missed you with you being all the way down in Texas.”

  She sank into the plush chair she had cleared and looked at him, her smile fading to be replaced by . . . sadness; an expression so unusual for her he didn’t know what to think. “I’ve been thinking of how to tell you this and now I don’t have words.”

  “Just tell me, Jennifer,” he said gently. Two decades of watching out for this family had taken him through the high and lows of each of their lives. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he would fix it, somehow. It was the one thing he could offer the family that was uniquely his to give. “I think I’m prepared to hear about anything.”

  She looked across the six feet of the room separating them, and suddenly there was moisture in her eyes. “Marcus, I’ve got cancer.”

  He wasn’t prepared for that. It stung hard, like a knife in his ribs when his guard was down. He visibly flinched and forced himself to take a breath. “Cancer.” She looked fine, but her eyes never wavered from his, and this wasn’t something anyone in the family would joke about. A dragon from the past roared toward him and the image of his mom flashed by. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not someone else he loved getting sick.

  She came over to sit on the couch beside him and he had to force himself to hear her words through the rushing memories. “I’m sorry. I know how hard it is to hear. It’s around my spine, has touched my liver. I start radiation Monday morning at Johns Hopkins.”

  The cold was like a grave opening up. “You told Kate.”

  “She’s the only one that knows,” Jennifer said softly.

  His hand settled on top of hers and his thumb rubbed the side of her wrist finding the reassurance of her steady pulse. Anger surged over the pain. Anger of a man mixing with anger of a boy—all of it pouring toward God. Not again. Please, not again.

  “When did you find out?”

  “I got the first suspicious test results a month ago. That trip to the Mayo Clinic? It wasn’t a consult on a case; I was the patient.”

  How had the family not clued in to the evidence? A month. The family grapevine normally knew the moment anything of significance happened, and she had been dealing with this for a month without saying anything. Alone in a hospital, without family to visit and keep her company . . . it broke his heart. “Jen, I wish I had known.”

  “Kate needed you, Marcus. I couldn’t help her in the midst of the toughest month of her life working that airline explosion investigation. What I could do was insure she had your undivided attention. Kate needed you, and I didn’t want to distract from that.”

  “You needed me too.”

  She squeezed his shoulder. “I knew you were only a phone call away,” she reassured. “That was such a comfort to know. They were doing the tests and poking and prodding me; it was still an undefined enemy at that point. I kept hoping that when they gave an answer it would be better news than it turned out to be. This is going to be a terrible, long battle, Marcus. Rest assured, I’m going to lean hard against all of the O’Malleys.”

  “The engagement.”

  “Tom didn’t want to wait. We’re going to postpone the wedding until the immediate course of treatment is past. Hopefully I’ll get a period of remission.”

  She wasn’t talking about a cure. “The prognosis is that bad?” he whispered.

  “People don’t live with this kind of cancer, Marcus.”

  He’d find a way to help her beat this; it would get every breath of energy he had. “You will.” He was the guardian of the O’Malleys—he had to find a way.

  She looked at him, and there was compassion there, for him, for what this meant. She was dying and she was worrying about me. He forgot sometimes just how stubborn and intense every member of this family was.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to look forward, to what she was going to need. He wanted to give her a hug and realized he was scared to death he would hurt her. If it was low around her spine, he couldn’t even hug her without thinking about it first. His hand settled on her shoulder. “Is Kate going with you to Baltimore?”

  “It’s not necessary. Tom is flying out to stay with me.”

  He looked at her and she grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “The family will be there. I’ll declare the emergency if you won’t.”

  “Marcus, I want the family there. I’m going to be leaning on all of you like crazy, but the next few weeks are going to be long days, boring even, and I’m going to be sick for most of them.”

  “Do you honestly think any one of us would care?”

  “I will.”

  “Tough,” Marcus replied, for the first time feeling a glimmer of hope touch his voice. “Are you going to tell them or do you
want me to?”

  “I’ve made rather a mess of it I’m afraid. I didn’t want to cast a shadow over the Fourth of July festivities and everyone’s first chance to meet Tom. And I was going to tell Lisa Thursday night, but she didn’t need this kind of news on top of the week she was having. Then when I left her place, it seemed more crucial to tell Jack about what was going on with Lisa than to hit him with my news. I’ve run out of calendar days.”

  “Kate and I will solve it. Don’t worry about it. Your flight tonight is at nine o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  “I get admitted at Johns Hopkins, they repeat the blood work, take more X rays. If everything is still a go, they start the radiation treatments Monday morning.”

  “Family will be there.”

  “Marcus—Shari really needs you right now. The others have jobs and commitments to keep. I really will be okay. Radiation and chemotherapy are a normal part of life for a cancer patient.”

  “I hear you, Jennifer. Now hear me—we need you. We’re going to be there for every inning, not just the peaks and valleys.” He saw her eyes glisten, saw her blink back moisture.

  “I knew you would respond this way.”

  He wiped her eyes dry with the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re our favorite. An O’Malley has never lost a fight yet; we’re not going to start now. Tell me the details, all of them, everything the tests have shown, what you’ve read, what the cancer doctors have said.”

  They talked for half an hour and then Kate came to join them. Marcus understood in one brief look at Kate how relieved she was now that he knew. This secret must have been killing her. He’d seen the strain on occasion and written it off as her adjusting to dating Dave. He could not have been more off target.

  The three of them talked until Jennifer said she needed to get to the airport. They walked with her down to the lobby. Marcus was reluctant to see her go. “Is it safe for a hug?”

  “Yes. And I’ll be bummed if you don’t.”

  He folded her carefully into his arms and buried his head against her hair. “Can I send you flowers?” he whispered, and felt relief as her laughter bubbled from her chest.

  “I hope you’ll fill the entire hospital room by the time I get released.”

  “Just the hospital room?” Marcus asked, pulling forth humor he didn’t feel. “I’ll call you every day and be there as soon as I can.”

  “I know, Marcus. Please don’t worry; I promise no more surprises. You’ll know everything going on.”

  “I’ll keep you to that.” He reluctantly let her go.

  Jennifer hugged Kate.

  “Call me when you get in,” Kate said.

  “I will,” Jennifer promised.

  Marcus looked over at Kate after Jennifer left and felt a heavy weight settle across his chest. “Kate, I’m so sorry you had to carry this secret alone. I knew you were stressed, but I thought it was everything going on in your own life, never something like this.”

  “I didn’t like keeping the secret from you but didn’t feel like I could push Jennifer any harder to tell you. She’s still struggling with this, a lot deeper than her words are reflecting.”

  Marcus wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, I’ll order us room service. We’ve got to talk.”

  “Deal.”

  They returned back to the suite and Marcus glanced at the room service menu but had no interest in eating.

  “You have to eat,” Kate said, reading his expression. “Order two cheeseburgers. If I’m going to eat, so are you.”

  She was right. Marcus ordered the two cheeseburgers.

  Sharing a dark day and doing it with Kate, there was no one he would prefer to be with. “How many crises have we weathered through the years?”

  “Too many. And this one is going to be the toughest.” He could hear the tension in her voice, the fear, for her Southern accent she used as a shield shifted to stretch the vowels. It was subtle, not many people would notice, but he could hear the change. The accent was like a cloak she pulled around her when the emotions were high. Language and the tone of words were both her profession and her way of expressing what she felt. And when she dropped that accent and reverted to the Chicago clipped speech she had grown up with . . . he’d only seen it happen a few times, right before her anger exploded.

  “We’re not going to lose her,” Marcus assured softly, going to the heart of her fear.

  “It’s going to rip the fabric of this family if we do. I’m so glad she’s a fighter.”

  “Does Dave know?”

  “Yes.” Kate hesitated. “Did Jennifer tell you she was baptized last month?”

  Marcus was startled at the news. “No.”

  “Tom introduced her to Jesus.”

  “She’s praying to be healed.” He said it with dread, knowing how badly she was setting herself up to be hurt.

  “Yes.”

  She’d believe, pray, and when they weren’t answered, it would cut like a dagger. Prayers were answered as much by chance as by a caring God. “She’s grasping at straws. I don’t want her to feel that disappointment if things get as bad as she described it could, if her prayers are not answered.”

  “Marcus, she’s not the only one who made that decision to believe. I did too.”

  Kate. This couldn’t be happening—it was his job to protect his family and they were walking down a road that would hurt them. How had he lost touch so quickly with what was happening in their lives? It had been an extraordinary few weeks with the airline bombing and the discovery Kate had a younger brother, but still, he should have seen what was going on. “Why—”

  “I don’t think it’s false hope. I think Jesus really does care, really is God, and He’s powerfully involved in our lives.” She stopped him when he would have interrupted. “I know what happened with your mom. You and I both know what it feels like to be abandoned. But I think you’re wrong to let that close the door on Jesus. The Bible says He was forsaken too—the day He died on the cross. He understands; He definitely knows what that pain feels like. And if He hadn’t been willing to accept the pain of the cross, Jennifer and I wouldn’t have the hope we do today.”

  Her words were calm and sure, and Marcus felt a degree of envy slip in alongside his deep doubts. She was logical, certain, and she had done the one thing he had thought was not possible: find a way to be comfortable with God.

  It wasn’t a subject he wanted to tackle with her, not when it would mean opening the door of his past with all its pain and disappointment. It was so much more than just God not answering his prayers. It was God abandoning his mom, not answering her prayers. There had been no one more committed and faithful to God than his mom, and she had died in that hospital because she could no longer breathe. He’d traveled this road already and did not want to see Kate and Jennifer hurt.

  It wasn’t the right time to have the discussion. He shifted the conversation back to Jennifer. “We have to call a family emergency.”

  It meant tossing Rachel on a plane in the middle of the night to get here, having Stephen and Jack pull in favors to get their shifts covered at the firehouse, have Lisa somehow get her pager reassigned. But if ever this family had had an emergency, they had one now. They had to talk face to face. “I want an O’Malley there with Jennifer on Monday.”

  “Agreed. I’ve already been working my schedule so I could go,” Kate replied. “I’m worried about how Rachel will take the news. It will hit her the hardest, I think.”

  “She empathizes when a moth hits the car window; she feels everyone’s pain as her own. It makes her a wonderful trauma psychologist, but when it’s family—”

  “She’ll never be able to find that internal distance. She’ll be absorbing the implications of this as deeply as Jennifer.”

  “She’ll want to go out east immediately; that’s a given. Do you and Rachel want to go out east first?”

  Kate nodded. “We stay through the week, then S
tephen and Jack shift their vacation time around and come out next—we can cover the next month without a problem.”

  “I’ll talk to Washington about getting Craig assigned to be primary for Shari and her family.”

  Kate shook her head. “Don’t do that. I understand why you want to, but I don’t think you should. Jennifer will accept us being there when we are using vacation time; sliding in visits between assignments. If you step out of an active job it will make her feel guilty, and that is the last thing she needs adding to the pressure she already feels. If Quinn can cover for you briefly, Dave can fly you out and back so you can visit.”

  “Kate, I need to be there for me; it’s not just for Jennifer’s benefit.”

  Jennifer was dying. It suddenly struck him what Shari must be feeling. How was she still able to walk around and function? He felt like someone had just slammed him and ripped apart his world. He faced losing Jennifer and he felt like the walking wounded. For Shari to have lost Carl, now to be watching her dad struggle to hang on . . .

  “We fight, Marcus. I’ve already got a four-inch binder of information for you to read. We’re about to become cancer specialists.”

  “I never dreamed this would happen. I worry about Stephen and Jack getting disoriented in a fire, of you encountering the one hostage situation that can’t be resolved, of Lisa stumbling into someone with a real skeleton in his closet; but when I worried, it was never about Jennifer. She’s a pediatrician; she’s the safe one.”

  “You can’t protect this family from life.”

  “It’s my job to try.”

  Kate gave him a look that fell somewhere between pity and loyal admiration. “Page the others. We’ll meet as soon as Rachel can get a flight back.”

  * * *

  The hotel directly across from the hospital was vintage versus modern, Old World elegance adding to its peaceful charm. Marcus checked one last time with the three men on the security detail watching the floor where Shari and her mom were now staying, then let himself into the adjoining suite to theirs. Her family had been given other rooms on the floor. It was coming up on midnight. They were short staffed everywhere, and Marcus had decided in the end it was best to be near the hospital tonight.