Matters of Faith (34 page)

And after a second of locking eyes with him, to his mortification and relief, he did just that. He somehow managed to keep the “Dad!” from flying out of his mouth, but when he reached him his knees went so soft that his father did nearly have to lift him just to keep him upright.

“Okay,” Cal said. “Okay, it's going to be okay.”

And for a few astonishing, pristine seconds, Marshall let himself believe that. This was all that faith was, all that God was, every religion in the world searched for this, this little bubble of time in his father's arms in which he was assured that everything was going to be okay.

It had to end, of course, and as soon as he felt his dad test his stability he stiffened his knees. The support was drawn away by degrees, until they were standing a foot away from each other, Marshall looking at the ground, his father looking over his head to study his mother on the front porch.

“Don't make me come down those steps with my knees, Calvin,” Grandmother Tobias called, and Marshall saw the resignation on his father's face. Marshall had gotten used to his grandmother's rough voice, her accent, her aggressive style, but he heard it now as if for the first time, grating on him, making him wonder how he, how his father, could have come from this.

He didn't just want to go home, he wanted to leave here, and for a moment he entertained the fantasy that he would leap into the truck and he and his father would strike out across Florida, leaving everything behind them on a cross-country father/son road trip.

He didn't know what his dad was thinking, but in the part moan, part sigh that he made he thought it must have been something a little similar. Marshall stayed by the car and watched him walk across the yard and up the steps, saw his father's head swivel as he took in the rotting boards along the edge of the rough concrete, the chipped edges of the steps, the slab of the front door.

He looked away when his father bent to give his mother a one-armed hug and a brief kiss on the cheek, and then glanced away again when he saw his grandmother clutch at him, just as desperately as he himself had just a minute ago. He felt the weight of all that desperation like a solid force touch on him, and wondered how his father remained upright throughout his life with so many people depending on him.

Maybe he didn't want a family after all. Maybe it was better to just do what his uncle had done, take off, not with a girl, not for love, but alone, to make his own life without the constant tugging on a conscience. He knew he was going home now, knew he was going to have to face some unknown consequence, but it wouldn't last forever.

And when it was over, well, maybe he would say his good-byes and start over somewhere he'd never been before, someplace it got cold in the winter, maybe with snow, Colorado, the Dakotas. He filed this plan away, next to the childhood plans he and Ira had made to be cops, the high school plans he'd made with his parents to graduate from college, the pseudo-adult plans he and Ada had made to live their lives together seeking redemption and light.

“Let's go, Marshall,” his dad called to him from the porch, and he made his way across the dirt yard and up the steps to face the waning afternoon trying to reconcile his father to this place and feed his nerves for the ride home.

“. . . about this trouble,” he heard his grandmother say from the kitchen, pouring his father a glass of tea she'd brewed on the back patio with thick slices of lemon and a tooth-aching amount of sugar.

“It's family business,” Cal said as Marshall silently approached.

She thunked the glass down on the counter in front of his father, a scowl Marshall had not yet seen fixed upon her face, making her look old to him for the first time. “And I'm no longer family, is that what you're saying?”

Marshall pulled the wood stool out and sat next to his father. Grandmother Tobias glared at him and then poured him a sweet tea and set it in front of him. His father took a long draw of the tea and sighed; Marshall couldn't tell if it was in pleasure at the tea or in frustration at the situation.

He took a sip of the tea and almost felt it splash into his nervous, empty stomach. He cleared his throat but neither of them looked at him.

“I, uh, I told her about Meghan,” he said softly. But his father didn't turn on him angrily as he might have expected. Instead, he continued to look steadily at Grandmother Tobias.

“We don't know what's going to happen,” he said. “But the most important thing now is to get Marshall home. The last thing Chloe needs is to have to worry about him too. She's already lost too much weight and too much sleep being at the hospital all the time.”

He knew his father didn't mean it to hurt him, but it felt like a punch in his already queasy stomach. He loved Meghan, he did, but her condition was too . . . foreign to imagine, too exotic and intense to think about without collapsing in self-hatred and sorrow. But thinking about his mother grown thin and exhausted with worry over Meghan and, even worse, him, was only too easy to comprehend, and it made him ill enough to consider another rapid trip down the hall to the bathroom.

Grandmother Tobias's face softened. “It's no good having a sick child,” she said. “Takes it out of you, and she's a slight enough thing as it is.”

“Meghan's not sick, Ma. She's in a coma. There's a big difference.”

Marshall flinched at the word
coma
. He could tell his father felt it, but he still didn't look at him.

“And what's going to happen with this one?” she asked, nodding her head at Marshall.

“I don't know,” his father answered. “We have a lawyer who seems to still be willing to talk to him, so we'll see.”

His grandmother snorted and gave Marshall a twisted smile that he didn't know how to respond to. “ ‘And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch,' ” she said ominously.

“And if you start with this, I'm taking my son and leaving right now,” his father said mildly, almost pleasantly.

“How far you've fallen, Calvin,” she said.

His father's attention finally descended upon him. “Go get your things,” he said, “and get them in the car.”

“Shouldn't we—”

And now his father's attention was so fully upon him that he got spooked and rose so quickly that he nearly knocked the stool over. He retreated to the bedroom he'd taken over after Ada left and began to throw his things into the duffel bags he'd retrieved from the car before she took off.

As he worked, he heard snatches of conversation from the kitchen.

“... gonna leave just like you did . . . don't take no genius to see that boy's got . . . a real little hellcat you ask me . . .”

And answering Grandmother Tobias, his father, in a voice Marshall had never heard before: “. . . leave it . . . it doesn't matter . . . happens or it won't . . .”

He stopped several times in order to eavesdrop, but their voices fluctuated in volume, giving him just the hint of their conversation. He tried to make it not matter, tried to remember that in all likelihood, this visit, this
thing
—he wasn't sure he could call it a bond—with his grandmother was nothing more than a temporary situation. The time he'd spent here was a blip in comparison to the drive home with his father. That car ride was going to be as intense as a sweat lodge.

He made a sudden dash across the hall to the bathroom and collapsed on the toilet, huddled over in misery as the decades-old argument continued in the same rooms it had been born in, his father and his grandmother at such opposite ends of the spectrum that it felt as though they tugged his insides back and forth between them.

He finally emerged, shaky and weakened, to silence. He peered down the hall toward the kitchen and saw no one, listened hard and heard nothing. He moved cautiously into the living room, nearly expecting to find that one had the other by the throat, or perhaps they had managed to kill each other, but found nothing.

He heard a noise from outside and whirled around to the windows. His father was lighting an old propane grill with a match held at the tips of his fingers, while his grandmother was setting a plate of sliced tomatoes on the patio table. Neither of them were moving their mouths, and they both looked grim enough to be in mourning, but at least they weren't sniping at each other.

He backed away from the windows before they could catch sight of him and completed his packing, loading his bags in the back of the truck, before sitting down with his father and grandmother to a mostly silent dinner of fried fish and grilled vegetables.

Nobody said grace.

BY the time I got back to the hospital I'd eaten two more Tylenol, but my wrist was only increasing its insistent throb. When I got up to Meghan's room, I actually felt a bit faint, my forehead slicked with sweat. The nurse at the station, Kendell, lit up when I stepped out of the elevator.

“Dr. Tyska is in with Meghan,” she said. “Reva told us about Meghan's hand. We've been watching closely, but nothing else, yet.”

I loved her for the “yet,” and nearly forgot about my wrist for a moment, but then it sent a throb through me designed to make sure I remembered. She must have seen a grimace because she cocked her head and inspected my face more closely.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “I'll be fine,” I said. “I just had a little fall. Thanks. I'd better go talk to him.” I smiled at her and hurried down the hall.

Meghan's door was slightly open, and I could hear two voices in her room. I stopped just outside and listened, not at all ashamed to eavesdrop in the hope that I might find out some tidbit they hadn't told me yet. Hearing Dr. Tyska's deep voice soothed me, and nothing he was saying was of concern to me. In fact, I felt a little spectral pat on the head when I heard him say, “The mother's been here constantly. She said she saw her right hand twitch last night—”

A woman's voice interrupted, indistinct, as though she were farther away from the door than Dr. Tyska, and I assumed it was a nurse. There was a low laugh from both of them, and then quick footsteps.

“I'll keep you posted,” Dr. Tyska said, still in the room, and the door opened the rest of the way, allowing Dr. Kimball out, her head with its gray pageboy turned back into the room.

“Thanks, Matt,” she said. “I hope things progress.”

“I told you to stay away from my daughter,” I said, my fury completely taking my mind off my wrist, the smell of the hospital antiseptic strong in my nose, making my head clear for the first time in hours.

She maintained her composure and stood up straight, sliding her hands into her pockets as if to show she wasn't concerned about having to defend herself against me, and tossing her hair out of her face. “Mrs. Tobias,” she said, nodding professionally at me, causing her hair to swing forward again. “I heard Meghan made some movement. I simply wanted to check in for a moment. I assure you I've crossed no boundaries here.”

“You being here at all is crossing a boundary. Get out of my sight—”

“Is there a problem here?” Dr. Tyska asked as he stepped into the hallway, looking concerned.

“Don't you ever allow this woman in my daughter's room again,” I said, turning on him, forgetting my wrist and pointing the index finger of my bad hand at Dr. Kimball, causing me to gasp and clutch it to my chest again. Dr. Kimball immediately stepped forward, her hands reaching for me.

“What's wrong? What did you do?” she asked.

I jerked away from her, protecting my wrist the way I'd not been able to protect my children, turning away from her grasp. “Get away from me,” I said, raising my voice, causing the nurse to peer down the hall. I edged around her as Dr. Tyska shot her an uncomprehending look and followed me. She raised her hands and mouthed, “Sorry,” to him before she turned and strode down the hall, stopping briefly at the nurses' station.

I hurried to Meghan's bedside, taking in her changed position, her right arm stretched to the edge of the bed, palm up. I glanced at the machines, their readings, their charts and cords, as if I expected to see them pulled from the wall. Kimball might have saved Meghan's life, but I was certain she was a danger to it.

Dr. Tyska followed me in and stood on the other side of Meghan's bed. “Are you all right?” he asked. “What happened out there?”

“I've been very clear that she is not allowed near my daughter,” I said, my voice shaking with adrenaline now that she was gone. I wanted to fall into my chair, but wanted to look as strong as my words while Dr. Tyska remained in the room. I could fall apart when I was alone.

“But—why?” he asked. “She was the admitting physician—”

“Because she's the one who caused my son to get arrested. I think we've got quite enough on our plate right now without having to see her, don't you?”

He shook his head. “I didn't really know about that. I mean, of course I know about Marshall, right? But I didn't know there was friction there. For what it's worth, she's not been here before as far as I know. I'll certainly respect your wishes in the future. And, she really was just checking on her. When we have a patient like Meghan, a child especially, who looks like they might be making a change, word tends to get around.”

The words drove everything else away. “You think she's making a change?” I asked, reaching out and grasping Meghan's hand.

“I don't know,” he said. “I heard it from Reva, but why don't you show me what happened.”

I went through the story again, showing him all the steps I'd been repeating with her. He watched so intently that I fully expected Meghan to do it again. But she didn't. Like Reva, he asked me to do it several times, checking her eyes with his light, watching the readings. He pursed his lips.