I wonder what Monica would do. What would she have done if she’d found out, after the accident, that she was pregnant with Marcus’s baby? Would she have had the baby by herself? She wouldn’t have been by herself, though. We would all have been with her. I imagine Monica moving into our house of women. That baby would have had five mamas looking out for it.
I wonder what I would do. Not that I’ve ever had the chance to have anything close to a pregnancy scare. I’ve never even been kissed.
Closest I’ve come is sharing mac ’n’ cheese with Aaron.
CHAPTER 27
I like running with the girls on the track team, but sometimes I miss my moonlit, star-chaperoned runs with Aaron. I don’t know how to tell him that. Don’t know if I should. I’ve never been so aware of a person before. He’s usually running close to me, watching, advising, but so is Coach Kerry and so is Eliza, and I couldn’t tell you how many breaths they took in a minute or what their eyes look like when I beat my best time or what the sun does to their smile. Even when Aaron’s not near me, I know exactly where he is. And when he leaves early or is off helping someone else or doing his own training … I know that too.
At least I still get an occasional afternoon in the car with him when he drives me home after practice. But today he has to run an errand for his mom. I ask Eliza for a ride, but she’s got a dentist appointment, so I decide to run home. I leave my backpack in my locker since I don’t have any homework tonight. I’m about to start jogging down the street when something in the sky catches my eye. A flash of gold and green. My dragon is high above me, so high she might be a plane, but I can tell it’s her. I look around, knowing that my lioness can’t be far behind. They’re always together. And then, around the corner, I see it. My lioness’s tail. I chase after it, glancing overhead to make sure my dragon is still above me, and she is. She’s soaring lower now, looping around the clouds, making figure of eights. She’s flying like I run, with pure joy.
My lioness leads me down an unfamiliar street, but I’m not scared, I trust her, and then suddenly we’re in front of a building I know all too well.
Grady Memorial Hospital. My heart hiccups and I look up for my dragon but she’s gone behind a cloud or flown somewhere else I can’t follow. I never visit Marcus during the week. Not because I don’t want to…
I’m scared. Scared to go in on my own. What if he dies while I’m in there?
My lioness wants me to go in. I feel her behind my knees, pressing me forward, nudging me toward the building I’ve come to despise.
At the visitors’ desk, the receptionist who was so rude to us the first time we came smiles at me. She recognizes us now. And ever since that time, she goes out of her way to be extra friendly. “Miss Jones! Lovely to see you. Just in time too. Visiting hours are over in thirty minutes. Your grandmother is inside already.”
I knew it. I knew Granny Dee was visiting Marcus and not telling us. It is a miracle she’s been able to keep quiet about it, especially with LaoLao always yammering about how all Granny Dee does is sit around the house. LaoLao might be working at the restaurant, but visiting Marcus is its own kind of work. Maybe I shouldn’t intrude. Maybe she hasn’t told us because she wants her own time with him. Not that he’s any kind of company.
A familiar laugh, a laugh I love, a laugh I’ll do almost anything to hear, buzzes down the hall.
Aaron. Aaron is here?
I nod at the nurse and walk as quickly as I can without running to room 304. Marcus’s room.
The door is ajar, and inside I see Granny Dee and Aaron sitting on either side of the bed. Granny Dee is in the more comfortable chair, the one by the window, facing me. Aaron’s back is to me and he’s sitting on one of the low stools the doctors use when they come in to take Marcus’s vitals.
Granny Dee doesn’t even notice me when I open the door. Her eyes are on Marcus’s unmoving face, but she’s not crying, she’s laughing. She’s holding one of Marcus’s hands and Aaron is holding her other one, making a little triangle.
“And then, Granny Dee, you won’t believe what Marcus did next,” Aaron is saying between bursts of laughter.
“He was only ten,” says Granny Dee, wiping her eyes as she laughs.
“He dyed the neighborhood pool green! With fifteen bottles of green food coloring! And he didn’t even get in trouble for it. You know who did?”
“I can guess,” says Granny Dee with an indulgent smile.
“Because where do you think he got the food coloring? Of course I had asked my mom to get it, told her we needed it for a school project. I didn’t know Marcus wanted to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in style.”
“You boys certainly kept things interesting.”
“Oh, and don’t forget when he bleached my hair,” says Aaron, shaking his head. “That stuff burned!”
I can’t remember the last time I saw Granny Dee laugh so hard. Marcus lies between them, and both of them are laughing so hard their shoulders are shaking, and I wonder if he can feel the happiness the way I can. If it is seeping into his skin, into his bones. I hope it is. If anything is going to heal him, this is.