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.”
What the fuck?!?
“What? When did she say that?” Erin asked, her eyes narrowing with concern.
“She texted me yesterday morning when I asked her if she needed a ride to school,” Lane said, glancing back and forth between Malcolm and his mother, gauging their reactions.
This was madness. She’d said nothing of the kind to him. Surely, she knew that this would have set him off. It was total self-sabotage. Like throwing away a winning lottery ticket. TA positions were in short supply. They covered the lion’s share of tuition and paid a monthly stipend. They provided teaching experience and the opportunity to cultivate and document a teaching philosophy. Next to one’s thesis and publications, they were the most important items on a curriculum vitae. How could Maren be thinking about throwing that away? It was too much.
Malcolm wanted to shake her. He wanted to make her see what she was doing to herself. He wanted to make her understand that such a sacrifice was meaningless. It would gain her and her family nothing. His temper broke.
“She cannot do that,” he barked, startling them. “You cannot allow her to continue to jeopardize her academic career—No, her professional career any further.”
“What do you mean by ‘any further, Malcolm?” Erin asked, shaking her head. “What has she already done? She’s an excellent student.”
Malcolm clenched his fists, keenly aware of his pulse pounding at his temple.
“Yes! She’s an excellent student and an excellent writer who gave away her chance at a first rate university in her field to come back here.” He fairly spat the last word. Malcolm saw the guilt splash over their faces, but he could not stop himself. “It won’t matter in ten years why she did it. When she’s competing for a tenure-track position in Memphis or Chicago or Boston, this will always hold her back. And that’s ground she’s already lost, if she gives up more—”
“Malcolm!” The word, shouted like a curse, came from behind him. Malcolm’s heart plummeted. He rose and turned to find Maren seething in the doorway. Her brown eyes blazed with fury and—what pierced him deepest—a naked betrayal.
“How could you?” Her voice grated over the words, anger choking her. “How could you? I trusted you! How could you do this to me? To them?”
Malcolm watched with horror as her wrath seemed to wobble then and tip dangerously close to heartbreak. He stepped toward her.
“Maren, I’m sorry. I had to help y—”
She raised a hand in disgust.
“Stop. Just shut up, Malcolm!” Maren raged, finding her wrath again. She was still in her soft, lilac robe, her hair still wet, but she may as well have been an assassin armed to eviscerate him. “I never asked for you to help me, you arrogant, self-righteous asshole!”
“Maren!” Her mother rasped, reminding Malcolm suddenly that he was being flayed alive in front of an audience. Somehow, this was unimportant. He had to make her see that he was on her side.
“Maren, my love, you are hurting your prospects,” he said, gently, trying to penetrate the violence in her eyes. “You are hurting yourself.”
She drew a breath to attack him again when a half-sound stole it from her.
“Merry?” her father croaked. “Is it true?”
Malcolm watched Maren’s face fall—absolutely fall—as her eyes met her father’s. Even Malcolm heard the regret in the dying man’s voice, and he knew then that he’d made a terrible—unforgivable—mistake.
For an instant, the look of devastation on her beautiful face made him want to fall to his knees, but then Maren straightened her spine and looked Malcolm dead in the eye as a stony mask stole over h
er features.
“Get out.”
Chapter 27
Maren
Maren stood there in her parents’ living room, listening to the silence that followed. Malcolm had shut the front door behind him, and no one spoke. Her parents, she knew, would be patient, but Lane and Laurel stared at her wide-eyed.
“Maren, what the hell?” Laurel muttered, unable to stand the tension.
She wanted to run upstairs and shut the door on everything, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore. Instead she sank down into the loveseat across from her family. It was still warm from holding Malcolm.
A knife edge sliced through her.
How could he do that to me?
“Lane, Laurel, come on. Let’s go fix ourselves a plate and give your sister some peace.” Erin stood up, and Maren’s brother and sister followed, as if they were school children.
Maren studied her fingers in her lap. She needed a manicure. The nails on her middle and left ring fingers had broken two nights before as she had struggled to keep her father from slipping out of the hospital bed. Convinced that the house was on fire, he had flung himself at her, yelling wildly. The nails now looked squared off and ugly, nothing like the neat ovals she usually sported.
It was easier to imagine trimming and filing them than to allow herself to feel the sinkhole that had started to hollow her out the moment she’d awoken in her brother’s room to hear Malcolm’s raised voice.
“She cannot do that!”
And it was the tone—more than the words—that had made her jump from the bed and head for the stairs. He had sounded afraid. For a moment, she had been terrified that someone was hurting him. But as she descended the stairs and heard his treacherous words, she felt as though her ribcage was being ripped away.
“Maren…?” Her father was still alert, still watching her. She could hear the others in the kitchen, murmuring in conspiracy, but she could not make out what they said.
“Yeah, Dad?” She still could not bring herself to look at him. She never again wanted to see the look of guilt and self-blame that had filled his eyes just before she sent Malcolm away.
“I asked you a question.” His voice was so weak. Maren sighed; she couldn’t make him ask again.
“It’s true about the program, but it doesn’t matter.” She looked up then, finally, so he could see that she spoke the truth. “I mean it doesn’t matter to me that UL isn’t Denver. I knew what I was doing, and I’d do it again….So don’t you dare feel guilty, Dad. Malcolm was way out of line.”
“Perhaps….But he seemed to have some good points,” her father said. His dark eyes were clear, and he seemed truly coherent for the first time in days. Why did this have to be the moment that he was able to tune in? She could have handled it if Malcolm had spilled her secret to everyone else while her father drifted. She crossed the room and took her mother’s abandoned chair by his bedside.
“I don’t regret transferring, Dad. Not for a second.” She could feel her anger returning, and she didn’t mind letting some of it show. “It’s my education. My career. My life. Don’t you see? If I’d have stayed in Denver, I’d be miserable with regrets.”
And I wouldn’t have met him.
The thought snuck in behind enemy lines.
And he wouldn’t have betrayed you, was her reply to it.
She pushed those thoughts aside. She could not deal with her feelings for Malcolm right now. Maren knew that what she told her father was true. If she’d have stayed in Denver, she would have been wracked with guilt and a suffocating desperation, knowing that she was missing her father’s last days, knowing that she was powerless. And Ben may have still been in her life. Which surely would have been a mistake.
Coming home hadn’t been easy, but Maren knew that it was the right decision for her. Screw Malcolm Vashal and his pretentiousness.
“What about what’s happening now?” This he asked with his eyes closed. He was so frail, so tired. And still, Maren could see that he was worried about her. It was unfair.
“Everything’s fine, Dad. Don’t worry,” she said in a soothing voice. But this clearly was not what her father wanted to hear because his eyes shot open.
“Don’t patronize me, Maren. I may be dying, but I’m not simple-minded,” he said, sternly. “Malcolm thinks there’s a reason to worry. He cares about you. Are you sure you’re seeing things clearly?”
“Me?!?”
This from the man who’d accused her mother of having an affair with the male hospice nurse not two days ago.
“Yes, you,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Maren, I don’t want you to use me…as an excuse…Get your mother, Maren…”
“Dad?” Fear gripped her. Was he slipping away again?
“Get Erin.”
She bolted up.
“Mom!” she called, almost panicking.
“You don’t have to yell….” he mumbled. “But don’t use me as an excuse to give up…Ask for what you need from people…who love you.”
Maren’s mother suddenly was at her side.
“What is it, Mark?” she asked. He opened his eyes and looked at his wife.
“It’s time to call Jackie. Tell her we need her here. Do it now, Erin.”
Maren watched her mother’s eyes fill with tears, but she nodded, pressed a kiss to his lips, and retreated to the kitchen.
“Merry, promise me you’ll go to school tomorrow,” her father said, his eyes barely open, but his focus still on her.
Malcolm had tried to make the same demand of her, and she had refused to give in, but she could refuse her father nothing. Not now.
“I will go to school tomorrow,” she said, evenly.
“If nothing else, talk to your professors….Make a plan for the coming days….Find someone to sub for your classes….Malcolm will help you…He loves you….”
“Malcolm is a jerk,” she uttered, unable to stop herself. “I can’t trust him.”
Her father smiled, even though his eyes were now closed again.
“Don’t be so hard on him….He’s exactly what you need….” His voice was just above a whisper.
“As if,” she said, rolling her eyes, but her father did not see her. He was asleep again.
Maren sat back in her chair and heaved a sigh. The strain of the last half hour threatened to undo her. She didn’t want to think about any of it, especially not Malcolm Vashal.
Faithless bastard.
She shot up out of her chair and headed for the kitchen. Laurel, Lane, and her mother were hovering around the island, plates of pizza crusts before them. Three boxes of pizza were stacked on the stove, and the aroma set her mouth watering.
Fuck that.
Maren grabbed the loaf of bread off the counter and yanked open the refrigerator.
“What are you doing?” Lane asked, as though she were daft.
Maren pulled out sliced turkey, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato.
“I’m making a sandwich. What does it look like?” she snapped.
Out of the corner of her eye, Maren saw her mother purse her lips. Laurel’s brows rose, but Lane was the only one who dared say anything.
“Look, Maren, I know you’re pissed at the guy, but that’s no reason to deprive yourself of pizza.”
Maren put a plate on the counter and set about making her sandwich.
“I’m not in the mood for pizza,” she lied.
Lane cocked his head at her and was about to press on when their mother raised her hand almost imperceptibly. Leave her be, it said. So instead of haranguing his sister, Lane made a show of serving himself two more pieces of pizza and enjoying giant, noisy bites.
He’s such a child.
“Aunt Jackie will be here tomorrow afternoon,” her mother said, seeming to address her empty plate.
Maren just nodded.
“And Lane and I are going to be here all morning,” Laurel said, risking a glance at her sister. “You can take my car to school.”
Maren set the m
ayonnaise knife against the countertop with an aggressive clank.
“That won’t be necessary. I can ride to school with Laurel first thing tomorrow, talk to the department chair, and resign my assistantship all before 9 a.m. I can catch the bus back, Mom, and you can be at work by 10.”
“Maren Elise Gardner, you will do no such thing!” Erin Gardner’s eyes flashed a black flint as she stared down her oldest daughter. “Malcolm was absolutely right. I know you don’t approve of his methods, but I’m grateful someone in your life has the sense to see that this kind of thing cannot go on one minute longer.”
Maren’s eyes went wide with shock. She hadn’t been scolded like this in nearly 10 years. Lane and Laurel seemed to be just as stunned at their mother’s outburst; they watched, riveted, but silent.
“Mom, I—”
“Maren, do you want to finish your master’s and get your Ph.D.?” Erin asked, still scowling at Maren as though she were a foolish child.
“Mom, of course! I don’t want anything else, but some things are more important than what I want,” she defended.
“Listen to me, Maren,” her mother half-scolded, half-pleaded, her face and tone finally softening. She came around the island to grip Maren’s elbow. “Nothing is more important to your father and me than that you three kids have the lives that you want. Don’t deny yourself and think that you are doing it on our behalf. It just isn’t true.”
Maren looked at her mother in defeat. With stunning clarity, she realized that nothing in her life made sense anymore. Nothing at all.
She looked down at the half-made sandwich and felt not even the slightest trace of hunger.
“I’m going for a run,” she said, pushing the plate away from her, not even bothering to close up the bread.
“What about your sandwich?” Lane asked, incredulous.
“You can have it,” Maren said on her way out of the kitchen.
She was freshly showered, but that didn’t matter now. The weight of the evening was threatening to bring her to tears again, and she absolutely refused to cry anymore. She needed to move, get away from everyone, and let her mind go. Maren quickly braided her hair, pulled on her running attire, and grabbed her music. She was out the front door and into the twilight without another word to anyone.
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