by Cameron Lowe
And Marley… well, Gwen had a feeling she could give the boy a mansion stuffed with toys and he’d somehow still find a way to be angry about it. On the other hand, Malcolm could wrap up a stick and give it to the kid, and he’d think it was the coolest toy ever invented. It hurt, knowing her child despised her that much, but she didn’t know how to fix it or that it could be fixed. Gwen coughed out a laugh, thinking about one birthday of Marley’s when they managed to get him something he wanted, an out-of-stock Adventure Time playset. Gwen spent hours and hours after work trying to track one down from a variety of Craigslist users, reboxed it to try and make it look new – complete with color copies of the original box’s art printed at the library – and wrapped it herself. But when he’d opened it, Marley darted straight for Malcolm, wrapping his tiny arms around his dad and giving him a duck-lipped kiss on the cheek while her husband mouthed the words, “I’m sorry” to her over Marley’s shoulder.
The memory sent her fingers moving despite herself. Gwen couldn’t do this without hearing their voices one last time.
Her mom picked up on the first ring. “Who is this? Get off the line, we’re-”
“Mom.”
Silence, then finally a strained, “Gwennie?”
Then, in the background, quiet Winnie asked, “Is it Mom?”
“Where are you?” Her mom sounded desperate. Shit. She knew.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m safe.” Gwen covered the phone while she hacked up a thick wad of phlegm and spat into the wastebasket. Back on the line, she said, “Could you put me on speakerphone? I want to… talk to the kids.”
“Sure,” her mom whispered. “But baby, where…?”
“Safe. Headed back to the hospital.”
“Oh thank God. Okay, yes, hang on, let me get Marley, he’s in the play room.”
Winnie took over the phone, and in the background, Roslyn yelped.
“Mom?” Winnie asked, and Gwen could hear the tears in her voice. “Mom, Dad called earlier. And Grandpa left really fast and Grandma wouldn’t say why. What’s going on? Are you…” she whispered so low Gwen almost couldn’t hear. “…are you dying?”
“No, sweetheart.” The lie ripped through Gwen and she shook with a silent sob. “Just got a little sick and confused. Needed to hear your sweet voices.”
“Okay,” Winnie said, unsure. “Roz and Marley are here now. I’ll put you on speakerphone.”
She did, and Roslyn, sounding terrified, belted out, “Mommy!”
“Shh, it’s all right, honey. It’s all right. I’m here.”
“I want you home,” Roslyn wailed. “I want Daddy home. We’re sorry about the spaghetti, I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Gwen said, and broke. She sobbed so hard there could be no hiding it. “It’s… it’s not your fault, baby. I just g-got sick, that’s all.”
“Mom?”
Marley. His voice was quiet, and frightened, and so serious she could imagine him twelve years from now, the same age as Hugh when his troubles started. Mom. Not Mommy, like he usually said. But Mom. She sobbed harder, holding the phone against her breast, wishing it was his little head as she rocked him to sleep.
“Can you come home?”
This was a mistake. This was the biggest mistake she’d ever made, because her resolve was crumbling now, and she couldn’t help imagining Malcolm breaking the news to them tomorrow, about how they’d react, how they’d forever change. She beat her hand against the desk, crying,
“I can’t, I can’t I can’t I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can’t what?” Winnie asked. “Mom, what’s going on?”
“I love you. I love you all so much,” Gwen said. “Are you behaving for Grandma?”
“Yes,” they all three solemnly chanted, like they were part of a Grandma-behaving cult.
She chuckled and swiped at her eyes. “Okay. Hey. Get to bed soon. Christmas Eve tomorrow.”
“We love you, Mommy,” Marley said, so serious it hurt. “Can we come see you? I w-want to c-come see you.”
Rozzie let out a sharp, high-pitched wail, and Winnie moved away, comforting her. Good girl. Daphne came back on the line, taking it off speakerphone.
“We’re all just about to have some hot cocoa and get tucked in,” she said, her voice a brittle chirp. “So you get better, and come home, and we’ll have a mug ready for you.”
Gwen was silent a long minute, and finally said, “Okay. Mom, I…”
“Nope, don’t say a word. You can tell me everything tomorrow. We’ll come see you, just for a minute because you need your rest, but we’ll come see you and everything will be fine and we’ll have just the nicest Christmas.”
“I love you, Mom,” Gwen whispered.
“I love you, baby.” Lower, barely a whisper, Daphne said, “Don’t you try to say goodbye too. I couldn’t handle that.”
“Mom, I-”
But she was gone, and Gwen hung up the phone, laying her head down on the desk, hearing their voices long afterwards. She wished she had the courage to call Malcolm. To say all the things that were in her heart, to help relieve him of the guilt. But she knew her husband. Given the chance, he’d try to talk her out of this, and he probably could. Malcolm always made things feel bearable, if not better. No, this had to be her decision, but her heart ached to hear his voice again.
* * *
Malcolm knelt in the snow as he studied the tracks, but this wasn’t Middle-Earth and he wasn’t Aragorn tracking orcs. This was reality, and in this world, he had no idea if any of these indentations might have belonged to his wife.
The wind was everywhere now, sliding in through all the holes of his coat like needles. He shivered uncontrollably and he’d just been in the van minutes ago. If Gwen was out in this… he refused to think it.
Someone shuffled out the door of one of the apartment buildings. Malcolm rushed over, sliding across a patch of ice in his haste and nearly colliding with the guy. “I don’t have shit,” the guy snapped, “so back off.”
“No, I’m not a mugger. I’m looking for my wife. She’s-”
“Haven’t seen her.”
“C’mon, man, let me just describe-”
“Haven’t seen her,” the man shouted, and stormed away, muttering under his breath.
Malcolm rubbed his forehead and laughed desperately. “This city.”
He staggered towards the middle of the apartment complex, surrounded on all sides by towering tributes to the families of the sick. Gwen had to stay in a place like this in Denver once, after Winnifred was born, when the doctors still thought they could figure out her seizures. The tests she needed took days, and it had killed Malcolm not to be by her side for all of it, even the mundane hours she spent in waiting rooms and her tiny apartment. God, they’d been so young then. As bad as they thought things were, they had no idea the hits Gwen would keep taking, right up until this very day.
Aside from having Gwen at his side again, Malcolm wished more than anything he could take on her illnesses and pains for himself. It had stopped being a joke between them that she couldn’t go ten minutes without catching a cold or accidentally breaking a bone. Or worse. It could have been so much worse, and almost was. It might be, if he couldn’t find her.
He turned around in the midst of those buildings. So many of the windows were lit, but no one was out in this crap. His hands cupped and pressed to his mouth, Malcolm shouted a hello, begging anyone and everyone who might hear him to open a window or come out and talk to him. It sounded crazy, he knew it.
“I’m looking for my wife!” he shouted. “Please, she’s out in the cold, and she’s all alone and I’m… I just want to find her!”
Someone stormed at him out of the dark periphery around the buildings, a long coat flapping in the wind.
“What happened?” a gruff, smoky voice asked. Elliot. Usually he got along with his father-in-law about as well as a steroided-out cat playing with a mean, pissed-off Rottweiler. No point in dodging the subj
ect.
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s delirious, but I don’t think so. She was careful enough to walk out of the hospital when no one was looking.”
A lifer in Rankin Flats, Elliot grew up in a rough neighborhood, and the city’s hardness grated him to a constant edge even in the best of times, and now he studied Malcolm with the same lizard-like eyes of the beginning of his relationship with Gwen, the same irritation, the same disapproval. “Earlier, I mean. The kids were upset when you dropped them off, said you two had been fighting, and now this. So tell me, Malcolm, what the hell happened with you and my daughter?”
Malcolm took off his wool cap and swiped at his forehead with the back of his snow-covered arm before he put it back on again. “I spent money we didn’t have. I fucked up, Elliot. We can’t make rent next month.”
The fist looped out of the darkness and crashed into his cheek. Malcolm staggered backwards, his foot going wild on the ice, and he fell sideways into a snowbank. He turned his head and spat red, grimaced, and spat again.
“You left her a night before Christmas Eve because you had a fight about fucking money?” Elliot hissed.
“I left her alone to try and fix things,” Malcolm said, standing up carefully. “A friend told me Calvin needed some warehouse workers. I went to him for a better job. To get down on my hands and knees and beg for help, if that’s what needs to happen. I was coming to you next. And if that didn’t work, my parents.”
“Coming to us?”
“Look, I know you said when Gwen and I first hooked up to never ask you for help. I’ve respected that, but we can’t do this alone. Not anymore. I was hoping I could talk to you about…” Malcolm took a deep, hard breath. “About us living with you. Just for a while.”
“You should have told us. What was so damned necessary that you couldn’t make rent?”
“Presents. For the kids,” Malcolm said. “I saw a good deal on…” He laughed hoarsely. “On some bikes they probably won’t even be able to ride for six months because of the weather, and that stupid part of my mind said, ‘Yeah, why not? Why can’t we give the kids something awesome this year?’ It was an idiot move, I know it. I made a mistake, Elliot, and now Gwen is paying for it. I know you don’t give a damn about me. That’s fine. I get it, she had an amazing life before I came along. But I am begging you. Please, don’t let my screwups affect Gwen and the kids. If we find her…”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know. I wasn’t thinking, but the kids… they weren’t getting much and I thought…”
“Not for the Christmas presents. Because you thought you couldn’t come to us. Of course you can come stay. For as long as you need to,” Elliot said. His voice barely carried to Malcolm. It was quiet and… hurt. Malcolm had never heard that tone in his father-in-law’s voice before, save maybe when it came to Hugh. “You’re right. I didn’t like you, but that was fifteen years ago. You’ve stood by my Gwen and Hugh and you’ve tried. I think you’ve hit an ocean of bad luck and I can’t blame you for that. It’s not your fault. It’s not Gwen’s fault. We all screw up. And for what you’ve done for my family, hell, Malcolm, I’d be happy to help you on your feet again.”
Malcolm stepped forward and embraced the other man. “Thank you.”
“Sorry about the…” Elliot gestured at his chin.
“Had it coming.” Malcolm turned around in a one-eighty and squinted. “I think this place is a lost cause.”
“I agree. The question is, what’s she thinking?” Elliot mused. “Why leave the hospital? What’s she doing?”
Malcolm thought about that and rubbed his sore cheek. “I don’t know.”
“Do you have friends out here?”
“Not this close to the hospital, no.”
“None of our family lives out here. Wait, except maybe her cousin Jordan. She’s not as close to her as Juliet, but if Gwen was worried about the hospital bill, maybe she checked herself out and went to stay there.”
“Worth a shot,” Malcolm agreed. His cell phone started buzzing.
“Gwen?” Elliot asked.
“No, your house phone. Probably the kids.”
“Take it. I’ll give Jordan a call and head in that direction,” Elliot said.
Malcolm nodded. Elliot took off towards the northern parking lot, while he’d left the van in the eastern one. Malcolm started walking towards it as swiftly as he dared. Jordan didn’t feel right. What was he missing?
He answered the phone as he moved. “Yeah?”
“Dad?” It was Winnie, and she sounded like she’d been crying. Of course she had.
“Baby, you okay? I can’t really talk right now.”
“I’m fine. We’re fine. But Dad, Mom called.”
He stopped. Fully, completely stopped. Not even his lungs worked as he tried to figure out how to say the next words. “How long ago? What did she say?” he finally whispered.
“Just right now. She was crying. She… she scared me.”
“Where was she?” Malcolm asked, his heart sinking. “Was she with anyone? Jordan, maybe?”
“No, I don’t think so. Dad… it seemed like…” Winnie snuffled. “It seemed like a goodbye.”
He knew what Winnie was implying. Two kids from Stonehead Junior High in as many years had committed suicide. They were only a year or two older than she was and there had been an assembly to talk about it with the kids.
The implication of what Winnie was really saying hit him and Malcolm figured it all out in one awful swoop, why she’d left the hospital, why Gwen was out in the cold. She wasn’t looking for shelter out of the storm. She was walking into the storm.
“Dad?”
They had no friends in the area, that much was true. But the old apartment building, that was nearby. Gwen hadn’t been aiming for these residences, but a light rail station just a block up. With no money on her, she couldn’t have risked riding far or else the conductor would kick her off, but she would only need to go to the next stop. It was a long walk. A hell of a long walk, and made longer by what she’d be wearing. He had the dreadful feeling she wouldn’t care, because Winnie was right. Gwen was saying goodbye.
No.
God, no.
Chapter 15
Then
“We have to get out of bed sometime,” Gwen murmured into Malcolm’s chest.
“A very opinionated part of me says otherwise.”
She reached down and squeezed that very opinionated part of him. “Mm. I’m sort of fond of him.”
“Really? He seems to like you too.”
Gwen took a deep breath. “Malcolm?”
“Mm?”
“What we said… in the heat of things…”
Malcolm rolled over and looked her in the eyes. “I want it. I want the whole thing.”
“I do too,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke his face. He wormed an arm under her and she closed her eyes and sighed appreciatively. “I love that you love to cuddle.”
“Oh yeah. I’m a cuddler. Just ask Nic.”
She giggled, and slapped his chest. Then she shot up, clasping a hand to her breast. “Oh my God. Does that mean we just got engaged?”
“I think it does, yeah.”
“Holy crap,” Gwen breathed, and fell back onto his arm and the lumpy pillows. “Holy crap!” She turned on her side again and started kissing him, gentle brushes of her lips turning into something deeper. Not lustful – they might be newly, madly in love but their bodies could only take so much gleeful abuse – but loving, happy, tearful kisses as she searched his eyes with her own. “I love you,” she whispered in between them. “I love you, Malcolm Irving.”
“I love you, Gwen Chaplain.”
She burst into nervous, happy laughter. “Ass.”
“What, is that not your name?”
“I gotta tell Juliet. I gotta tell Hugh and Charlie. I gotta tell…” Gwen winced. “Oh, shit, my parents.”
“That discussion’s going to go well.”
“Do you own a bulletproof vest, by any chance?”
* * *
With Juliet, Gwen expected unabashed happiness, but from her cousin, there was a slight pause, and then a blatantly forced squeal of joy that somehow ended up sounding like a question mark. Try as she might throughout the years, that moment, that horrible moment, always stuck with Gwen. She and Juliet would always be close, but that forced cheerfulness tainted their relationship with the knowledge that Gwen’s best friend didn’t approve of Malcolm.
Hugh, who by that point was living in a tiny dorm room while he went to college locally, was unexpectedly through the moon. As Gwen sat on his bed and Malcolm on a questionably safe wooden chair, Hugh demanded to hear the story two times, and called Vanessa halfway through the second telling so she could come join them for a third. She snuck a bottle of cheap wine into her purse when she came, and the four of them had a toast there in the dorm. Had they not been so absorbed in their own glee, they might have seen the first signs of worry in Vanessa when she looked at Hugh, or noticed the way Gwen’s brother was so manic, so high on emotion.
Before they went to tell Gwen’s parents, they stopped by a jewelry store, and Malcolm goggled at the prices. There was no way he could afford to buy Gwen anything in the case, and sensing his uncomfortableness, she suggested maybe they try the next store.
In the parking lot, he took her hands and looked down at her. “I wish…”
“It’s okay, Malcolm. It’s okay. I think I saw a sale on jewelry in the paper. Let me just see where it was.”
“You deserve more than a sale ring,” he protested, but she grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down for a long, slow kiss that left him half-hard.
“You’re what I need. The ring is… it’s just a symbol.” She tapped his chest. “This is what matters.”
At a big box store, they found a silver ring embedded with three tiny diamond hearts for just under forty dollars, and even better, it was in her size. Gwen cried when Malcolm slipped it on her finger in a park near the store, and they spent a good long while there together, just being.