David nodded. “Sure.”
Laurel chose an old musical where no one was sick and no one died.
Laurel shrugged. “It’s fun.”
“Your call.”
Fifteen minutes into the movie, David was laughing while Laurel just watched him — his silhouette brightened by the television screen. His face was in an almost-smile, and every once in a while he would tilt his head back and laugh. It was easy to forget about everything else when she was with him. Without stopping to think about her actions, Laurel scooted closer. Almost instinctively, David lifted his arm and draped it around her shoulders. Laurel snuggled up against his ribs and laid her head on his chest. His arm tightened around her, and he leaned his head so his cheek rested against the crown of her head.
“Thanks for coming,” Laurel whispered with a smile.
“Anytime,” David said, his lips brushing her hair.
Laurel looked up when the chime sounded on the front door of the bookstore. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to smile at one more customer. But a smile of relief crossed her face when her eyes found David’s. “Hi,” she said, and set the stack of books she’d been sorting back on the table beside the shelf.
“Hey,” David said quietly. “How are you doing?”
Laurel forced herself to smile. “I’m alive.”
“Barely.” He hesitated. “How’s your dad?”
Laurel turned back to the shelf, trying to blink away her tears for about the fiftieth time that day. She felt David’s hands rubbing her shoulders and she leaned on him, letting herself relax, feeling better — safer. “They’re transferring him to Brookings Medical Center,” she whispered after a few minutes.
“Is he worse?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
David let his cheek rest against the top of her head.
The chime at the front door sounded again, and even though Jen hurried to help the customer, Laurel stepped away and took a deep, shuddering breath to regain composure. “I need to get this done,” she said, picking up the small stack of books from the table. “The store closes in an hour, and I’ve got four more boxes to unload.”
“Let me help,” David said. “Just tell me where they go.” He grinned. “You can be the supervisor.” He took the stack of books from her and rubbed the shiny cover of the top one for a few seconds. “Maybe I could come in and help tomorrow too.”
“You have your own job. You have to pay for car insurance, you told me.”
“I don’t care about my stupid insurance, Laurel.” His voice was sharp and he paused before continuing in a soft, calm tone. “This is the first time all week I’ve seen you for more than lunch or during class. I miss you,” he said with a shrug.
Laurel hesitated.
“Please?”
Laurel relented. “Fine, but only till my dad’s better.”
“That’ll be soon, Laurel. They have great specialists in Brookings; they’ll figure out what’s wrong.” He grinned. “You’ll be lucky if you get a whole week’s worth of labor out of me.”
DESPITE DAVID’S OPTIMISTIC WORDS, ONE WEEK turned into two, and still Laurel’s dad didn’t improve. Laurel moved through her life like a ghost, hardly speaking to anyone except Maddie and David and Chelsea, who often stopped by the bookstore to chat. They hadn’t gotten Chelsea to help much yet — she was a natural supervisor, she joked — but the company of Laurel’s two friends was comforting.
True to his word, David was determined to work at the bookstore until Laurel’s dad came home. Laurel felt guilty as time passed and he kept working for free, but it was an argument she always lost.
Some days they spent the afternoons chatting as they sorted books and dusted shelves, and for just a few minutes Laurel would forget about her dad. It never lasted long, though. Now that he had been transferred, she didn’t get to see him every day. But the minute David got his license, he volunteered to play chauffeur every two or three days.
He drove her and Chelsea out to Brookings the first day after getting his license, and though Laurel held on to her seatbelt with white knuckles and Chelsea lectured him every time he went over the speed limit, they made it in one piece.
Laurel brought flowers — just wild ones from their yard. She hoped the reminder of home would make her father more anxious to return. He’d been very weak and only managed to keep his eyes open for a few minutes to say hello and accept a gentle hug. Then he slipped back into the oblivion of the morphine.
That was the last time Laurel had seen her father awake. Shortly afterward, the hospital staff started sedating him full-time to keep him from the continual pain that even morphine couldn’t completely take away. Laurel was secretly glad. It was easier to see him there asleep. He looked peaceful and content. When he was awake, she could see the pain he tried to hide and it was horribly obvious how weak he had become. Sleep was better.
The lab tech had been able to isolate a toxin in her dad’s blood, but it was one the doctors had never seen before and, so far, were helpless to treat. They tried everything, filling his body with any chemical they thought might help — turning him into a human guinea pig as they attempted to reverse the effects of the toxin. But nothing worked. His body was getting weaker, and two days earlier one of the doctors pulled Laurel’s mom out of the room and informed her that, though they would keep trying, if they couldn’t cleanse the toxin from his blood, it was only a matter of time before his organs would shut down, one by one.
And it didn’t help that Mr. Barnes had started calling every night. For over a week, Laurel had been able to just say that her mom wasn’t home, but after a while, he wouldn’t accept that answer. After being interrogated twice, Laurel had started letting the answering machine pick up all the calls, snatching it off the hook only if it was David or Chelsea.
She didn’t tell her mom about Mr. Barnes at all.
She felt guilty every night as she erased the daily message — sometimes two — but she had promised Tamani she would do what she could.
It was strange to think of Tamani now. He seemed almost like a dream. A bigger-than-life person who belonged with the glitz and excitement that had come with her acceptance that she really was a faerie. None of that seemed very important now. She considered going to see him, but even if she had transportation, what could he do? Enticing certainly wasn’t going to help her father.
She’d promised that she would warn him if the property was in trouble, but since she was erasing all of Mr. Barnes’s messages, it wasn’t. Lately, she just tried not to think about Tamani at all.
Laurel heard the high-pitched ring of the telephone from inside the door as she was coming home from the bookstore, and she hurried to turn her key in the lock. She reached the phone on the sixth ring and heard her mother’s voice. “Hey, Mom. How’s Dad today?”
The line was silent.
“Mom?”
She heard her mother take a ragged breath and find her voice again. “I just spoke to Dr. Hansen,” she said, her voice quivering. “Your dad is showing signs of heart failure. They’ve given him less than a week.”
David was silent as he drove down the darkened highway. Laurel had managed to catch him on his cell phone just as he was reaching his house, and he’d insisted on driving her down to Brookings that night instead of waiting for morning. Laurel had the window down, and even though David must have been freezing with the cold autumn wind rushing through the car, he didn’t protest. She felt his eyes flit continually to her, and once in a while he would reach over and run his hand down her arm. But he said nothing.
They pulled into the parking lot of Brookings Medical Center and David took Laurel’s hand as they followed the familiar route to Laurel’s dad’s room. Laurel knocked lightly on the open door and poked her head through the curtain that surrounded the doorway. Her mom sat at the small table with a man whose back was toward them — but she waved Laurel and David in.
Laurel recognized the man immediately. His shoulders were broad and hulking in a shirt that didn’t seem to fit quite right. And something about his presence put her nerves on edge. It was Mr. Barnes.
Laurel leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest as her mother continued talking to
