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At the Oval, teens roller-bladed to top 40 hits. An elderly couple, hand in hand, glided along beside them. All the baseball fields were full. A man tossed a Frisbee to his dog, a black shaggy-looking dog, and Lincoln looked away.
A cart glinted by North Park Street. Marvin. Lincoln quickened his pace. “Hello!”
Marvin caught sight of him then struggled to turn his cart in the other direction. He shook the thing and grumbled as he tried to get it off of the grass and onto the sidewalk.
“Sir.” Lincoln came up beside him.
“This is mine.” Marvin grasped the cart and crouched against it.
Lincoln stepped back. “Oh, I know. I—”
Marvin's eyes narrowed. “You're the man that was with my Theo.” He yanked the cart away from Lincoln. “What do you want?”
“I'm a friend. A friend of Kali's.”
“But not of mine.” Marvin, his cart free, turned from Lincoln and started down the sidewalk. Lincoln ran in front of the cart. Marvin made a gasping noise and backed the cart up.
“I just want to talk to you. You care about them, right?”
Marvin stopped, his eyebrow raised.
“I care about them too. And they're in the hospital right now.”
“The—”
“They're okay.” Lincoln put his arms out. “They're fine. Theo fractured his arm, but he's going to be fine.”
The man's shoulders relaxed. His voice was gravelly, like he didn't use it much. “What happened?”
“Kali stepped out in front of a truck.”
“A—”
“Weird, right? The person I talked to, a witness, said she looked both ways and then stepped out.”
“You don't think—” Marvin's eyes widened. “Oh, Kali.” He put his hands to the side of his head and pelted himself. “Kali, no. Sweetness, no.”
Lincoln eased around the side of the cart. He rested a hand on Marvin's shoulder; the man's head shot up as he shuffled away.
“I don't know. I don't think so. I can't imagine ... but Theo said she'd been crying and—”
“Theo said? Theo talked? The boy talked!” Marvin's face lit. “He talked?”
“Yeah,” Lincoln let out a chuckle, “a bit. But the thing is I think something is wrong. Something big. I've been trying to talk to her,” Lincoln passed a hand through his hair, “but she shuts me out.”
Marvin nodded, suddenly seeming ... normal. “She'll do that. Shut you out. She shut my Derek out, time and again.” Marvin grinned. “Not me, though. Doesn't shut me out. Must be 'cause I'm so sweet or,” his smile faded, “well,” he held his hands out and gestured to himself, “why push away a lost cause?”
Lincoln pressed his lips together. He took a breath. He needed one. Whether it was Marvin or his cart, he didn't know, but he commended Kali for hugging the man.
“So she does this, pushes people away?”
“She's stubborn. Tough. So stubborn and tough it makes her stupid, even though she's not.” He looked away. “Kinda like me. Probably why I've always liked her so much.” He turned back to Lincoln. “But at the same time, she's kind of an open book. If you think something's wrong, then something's wrong. And you can push and push but until she's ready,” he made the lips-zipped-tight motion across his mouth.
“Any way to speed the process along? Her being ready?”
Marvin laughed. His face went serious. “But she likes you. Or she trusts you.”
“How do you—”
“You had her Theo. Not just anyone gets her Theo. No man, especially.” Marvin leaned toward Lincoln. “You like her?”
“Uh ...”
“I mean really like her, not want to,” Marvin looked sideways, “you know, but really like her. Like her like a man likes a woman. Not a boy, who only thinks he's a man.”
The ball landed in Lincoln's gut. “I care about her. And I care about Theo.”
Marvin put his fingerless-gloved hands on the handle of his cart and leaned against it. “That's good. And you must be some kind of decent. You wouldn't be here talking to me if you weren't.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his chin. “She has no one. No one but me anyway.” A gravelly laugh. “Which equates to the same thing.” Marvin's hand clamped onto Lincoln's shoulder. “She's worth it. And when she decides to love, she can love hard.” His bony fingers clenched down. “Be worth it. If you let her, if you prompt her, be worth it.” He let go. “Maybe you already love her.”
Lincoln stepped back. What was he supposed to say to that? What could he say to that? To a stranger, especially. He didn't love Kali. Theo, maybe, but not Kali. She made life more ... livable. That was all. It'd felt hard to breathe since he saw Lucy in that hospital bed, learned his child was dead before it had even lived, learned it may not have even been his child. When Joseph entered that day, his gaze on Lucy not Lincoln, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, out of the world; but from the moment he first saw Kali, slowly, it had come back.
Marvin loosened his grip and patted Lincoln's shoulder. He smiled the smile of a man who would have been handsome once. “Yeah. I feel you.” He nodded, his head bobbing just short of maniacally. He dropped his hand. “She's worth it. Not easy. Nothing with her will be easy.” A chuckle. Marvin put both hands back on the cart. “She's stubborn and she's scared and kinda broken too. Derek made her worse. You'll have to fight her just to stay around. But stay around.”
Lincoln looked toward the hospital. “I'm going there to wait for her, to see how Theo is. Come with me.”
“No.” Marvin started to push the cart away. “No one wants me around.”
“Kali will.” Lincoln put a hand on the cart. Marvin tensed. “Trust me.”
Marvin shrunk back. One arm wrapped around his middle and the other clenched the cart handle. Lincoln waited. Marvin glanced toward the hospital then back at Lincoln. “Just to make sure the boy's all right.”
“Just to make sure he's all right.” Lincoln smiled, and the weight in his gut fluttered a little. The pain and uncertainty in Marvin's eyes felt scarily familiar.
––––––––
LINCOLN RETURNED TO the bench at the side of the courtyard. Marvin waited up the street, the tip of his cart visible behind a gathering of trees. Lincoln sat with his back straight, his eyes on the door. He slipped out his phone and a sliver of unrest shot through him at how easy this habit came back to him. But there were no stocks he was eager to check, no scores, no business news. Just the time. He was only checking the time.
It had been a little over forty minutes since he exited the ER, which meant Kali and Theo could still be another hour. More, even. His stomach grumbled. He wished he'd remembered to pick up some food. But his stomach could wait. Catching Kali, confronting her, forcing her to open up, was more important than food. A grin slipped through. She was tough, Marvin had said. Stubborn. So was he. Or at least he could be.
He pictured her—the way she looked at Theo, her persistence with Marvin, her ploy to make his birthday something he'd enjoy. She wasn't just tough, she was caring, once she let you in. Devoted.
The minutes passed. After two more phone checks, Lincoln resolved not to pull it out again. It wouldn't make them come out sooner, and unless Shelley was far off, there was little chance he'd already missed them.
He focused instead on watching the people entering and exiting the building and wondered what their stories were. And then there they were. Kali's face was drawn, exhausted, like she hadn't slept in a week and had been crying half of that time. Theo's body was slung across hers, his arms and legs dangling at the sides of her small frame. His booster seat dangled from the arm that wasn't grasping her boy.
Lincoln stood, waved a hand to Marvin, and approached.
“Hey.”
Kali's head lifted. Her mouth opened, the slightest sigh emerging. She shook her head and walked on.
“Kali.”
“What?”
Lincoln stepped beside her. “You need a ride?”
“No.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. She stopped, licked, then bit her bottom lip, but didn't turn.
“You do need a ride.”
“I called a cab.”
She spun and dropped the booster seat. “How do you know I need a ride? You actually stalking me now?”
The clink and rustle of Marvin's cart approached them. Kali glanced from Lincoln to Marvin then back at Lincoln again. “You? Why?” Her shoulders slumped.
“Hi, Sweetness.” Marvin sidled up to her.
“Hi.”
Marvin put a hand out to Theo's sleeping head. He didn't touch it, just let the hand hover half an inch above the boy's dreads, then gestured to the cast on Theo's left arm. “How is he?”
Kali adjusted Theo with a little jerk and held him tighter. “He's fine. He'll be just fine. How are you?”
Marvin shook his head. “Where's your car, Sweetness? Why didn't you drive?”
Kali's lip trembled. She bit her lip again and looked up and away from them. Her chest raised and the air streamed out slowly.
“Sweetness?”
She looked to Marvin. “We need to talk.”
Marvin shifted toward her. “Okay.”
Kali looked to Lincoln, then back at Marvin. “Not here, okay? And I need to get Theo to bed. Just this once, come with me.”
Marvin's gaze lingered on his cart—eyeing it as if it held riches, or a life.
“Marvin.” A plea was in Kali's voice.
“I'll take you. All of you.” Lincoln stepped closer. I have a tarp and some cables in my truck. We'll put the cart in it. It'll be safe.”
Kali opened her mouth as if to protest then turned to Marvin.
He rubbed a hand on the scraggly curls of his beard.
“Will you come? If your cart comes too?”
“I can bring you back here after.” Lincoln reached for the booster seat. “Or anywhere you want to go.”
Marvin looked from his cart to the truck then back to his cart. He nodded.