“It turned out my sister was being overly dramatic in thinking the cancer was recurring,” she said.
“Wow. That’s gotta be hard for Brandon.”
“He doesn’t suspect anything. He thinks it’s just a sleepover.” Again, that frown.
He squinted at her. “And you’re not comfortable with that?”
“I’m used to living alone.”
“Auntie!” Brandon was through being patient; he resumed his hammering on the door.
A door opened farther down the hallway. A head popped out.
Jon blocked Elizabeth from view by standing with his back to the curious neighbor. “You should let Brandon out to see me before the neighbors come over to investigate,” he pointed out.
She looked horrified. “Get inside,” she hissed. “Quickly.”
He’d never met a woman like her. Jon was willing to bet she didn’t know many of her neighbors. Holding out his hand, indicating she lead, he followed her inside. He liked the view of her in her street clothes rather than her hospital scrubs. This was the real Lizzy that she hid from the public. He appreciated seeing it.
Inside her apartment—smaller and homier than his, with lower ceilings instead of wide-open windows, and curtains drawn tight—he could see straight away that she’d been in the process of foraging up a meal in the kitchen. The wall cabinets were open, and cans of soup—he saw one labeled chicken noodle—were spread over the counter. An empty pot sat on the stovetop.
Brandon came up behind him, clasped Jon’s elbow and clung to him. Jon stiffened. Not cool, Brandon, he almost said.
“You can give him his autograph,” Lizzy remarked, “but then you have to leave. I need to run out to the store to grab us something for dinner.”
Her mobile phone rang and, flustered, Lizzy excused herself to go answer it.
Jon stared from Lizzy—in the kitchen whispering into the phone—to Brandon.
Maybe the boy just didn’t like chicken noodle soup. His own younger brothers were finicky eaters; one of them had consumed nothing but peanut butter sandwiches until he hit school age. Jon smiled at Brandon and took the boy’s hand. He thought again about telling the kid that it was a bad idea to grab a pitcher’s throwing arm—sort of like tugging on Superman’s cape—but given the kid’s and his aunt’s riled-up emotions, he figured he would let it go. The kid had been through enough. “I brought over the autograph you asked me for. Plus a game ball from my last start of the season.”
Brandon brightened. “That was your Toronto game!”
“It was.”
“I watched the whole thing on TV! My mom let me stay up late.”
“Are you behaving for your aunt tonight?”
Brandon scratched his head. “I’m hungry.”
Jon sat on the couch and motioned for the boy to sit beside him. He noticed a half-written grocery list on the coffee table. Lizzy obviously wasn’t used to having people drop by her house unexpectedly, like he was. She probably didn’t cook much for herself, either—too many long hours at her job. He could certainly relate.
Lizzy was still murmuring into her phone, in a low voice. She was flustered and out of her element with her nephew and him in the house. While she spoke on the phone, she glanced nervously at them, then opened her refrigerator and stared inside.
Jon smiled quietly at Brandon. His experience bringing up rambunctious younger brothers had taught him that if he acted calm, they were more likely to follow his lead and act calm, too.
“So you’re staying here for the night?” he asked Brandon.
The child nodded. “Do you want to see my room?”
“In a minute. For now, I’m wondering why you’re not in your pajamas. It’s pretty late. Do you have school tomorrow?”
Brandon brightened. “I didn’t go today, but Auntie is driving me tomorrow. I’m going to tell everybody I met you.”
“You can do that. But you know, it would really make me happy if you made things easy on your aunt. She works hard. Did you know she took care of a problem with my catching hand today?” Jon held up his bandage.
The kid looked awestruck. Jon’s wound did look impressive, all wrapped up like Frankenstein’s finger. It throbbed, too, but he was going to overlook that for now.
“It’s important you sit still and not bump it,” he told Brandon. “That way it will heal properly. Do you think you can do that?”
Brandon’s eyes widened. “Are you on the D.L?”
Disabled list. Jon smiled to himself. Yeah, this kid was a baseball fan. “I wish. That would mean the season wasn’t over for us yet.”
“I wish the season wasn’t over yet, too. Because then you could get tickets for us. We could sit in the players’ box and watch you pitch, couldn’t we? We could be on TV.”
“Ah...” The kid was a live wire, that was for sure. Jon stood and motioned for Brandon to follow. Jon would do this small act to help her, and then he would leave. Now that he knew Brandon was probably okay, he was feeling much better. “Let’s get you into your pajamas so you can eat dinner and go right to bed afterward for your aunt. Does your mom like you to take a bath at night, or do you do that in the morning?”
“I take a shower in the morning,” Brandon said. “But I don’t have my toothbrush with me. I forgot it.”
“We’ll add one to your aunt’s shopping list. What kind of toothpaste do you like?”
“The blue kind.”
“What’s that? Bubble-gum flavor?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Farell, but the five minutes is over and you’re going to have to leave now.”
He and Brandon stopped talking and stared over at Lizzy.
You’re in my bathroom, she mouthed to Jon, obviously annoyed.
Yeah, he was. But if anybody needed help with the boy, she did. Maybe it was time she removed that bug she carried up her butt.
Slowly, Jon straightened to his full height. “Brandon’s going to get into his pajamas for you, and I’m gonna take your shopping list and grab us all something for dinner. Then I’ll get out of your hair. Is that okay with you?”
She pulled him angrily aside, out of earshot from Brandon. He got that he was overstepping his bounds, and that she was probably going to throw him out the door, into the hallway.
Still, he rather enjoyed the feeling of her palm, curled into a fistful of fabric from his T-shirt and pulling him around the corner into her...bedroom.
It was Spartan. Too Spartan. A plain cotton comforter, beige walls, miniblinds. Not a throw pillow in sight. No television. No comforts or interesting things to look at. Certainly no silk ties, lubricant or sex toys...
“I,” she said, jabbing a finger to his chest, “can take care of my own nephew. Alone.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you can. All I’m doing is helping you.”
“Auntie?” Brandon said, standing plaintively in the doorway.