“Marcus!” a tenor voice said happily, jarring him out of his funk. “What are you doing here?”
He looked up to see a too-thin boy with a baseball cap perched at a jaunty angle over his bald head and an ashy undertone to his dark skin. Despite his obvious ill health, the youth radiated enthusiasm and goodwill. Tito was a frequent visitor to the chemotherapy unit; at twelve, he was battling leukemia with a grace that made Marcus like him from the first moment they’d met. He always took the time to talk to the boy when they were in the waiting room at the same time.
“Hey, Tito, good to see you,” Marcus said. “I hope you’re not here for the coffee. That stuff will stunt your growth, you know.”
Tito chuckled, sliding into one of the empty chairs at the table and waving his bottle of water as evidence to the contrary. “No way, man. I had to come get my levels tested before my next session, and my mom wanted to grab something to eat while we were here.” The boy lowered his voice. “She pulled another double shift at the plant, and I don’t think she remembered to pack enough lunch for both shifts.”
Marcus had met Tito’s mother, too, of course. Candace Philips was a single mom who tried hard to balance spending time with her sick son with working extra hours at the town’s last remaining fish processing plant to help pay for his treatments. She was also unrelentingly cordial to Marcus’s father, no matter how crabby and rude the old man was.
“Look, Mom,” Tito said as his mother walked over to the table, a half-empty tray in her hands. A limp tuna sandwich and an apple barely made a dent in its faded blue plastic expanse. “Marcus is here!”
“Mr. Dermott,” Candace corrected him, and mustered a tired smile. “Hi there.”
“Hi yourself,” Marcus answered, getting up to pull out a chair for her. “And Marcus is fine; Mr. Dermott is my father.”
Candace sat as though her legs might not hold her for another moment, eyeing her dinner with a notable lack of enthusiasm. Marcus didn’t blame her.
She looked around the room. “Is your father here?”
“Emergency room,” Marcus said shortly, then held up a hand when she looked alarmed. “He’s fine. We were out in a storm and he pushed a little too hard. They’re pumping him up with fluids and balancing his electrolytes, and then he gets to go home.”
“You were out in the boat in that storm?” Tito’s eyes looked even bigger in his gaunt face. “Wow. That must have been something.” He turned to his mother. “You know, Marcus promised to take me out fishing sometime. On his dad’s boat. That would be so cool.”
Marcus smothered a grin at the boy’s enthusiasm. It had been a long time since he was that excited about going out on the water, but he could remember what it felt like as a boy. There was something magical about being out on the ocean.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it as a promise, Tito,” Candace said, with the tone of someone who had been let down one too many times. Marcus didn’t know what the story with the boy’s father was; just that he had never heard one mentioned.
Tito’s face fell. “Oh, sure. I didn’t mean to be pushy or anything.”
Marcus couldn’t stand the look of disappointment. “Hey, I have an idea,” he said.
The other two looked at him, one with blank exhaustion, the other with budding excitement.
“What?” Tito asked.
“Well, if your levels check out okay, and your mom says it is all right, what about coming out in the boat with me tomorrow?” Marcus had no idea what had possessed him to offer. Since he’d gotten back, he’d studiously avoided emotional attachments of any kind. There was too much collateral damage when you got close to people. But this wasn’t a war zone, and Tito was just a sick kid.
“Really?” Tito said, a wide grin showing off a mouthful of white teeth. His mother looked torn between hope and fear.
“Sure, why not?” Marcus said recklessly. “The doctors told my father he had to take a day to rest before he could go back to work, and I’ve got this woman who is paying us to bring her out to a dive site, so I have to take the boat out anyway. She can only dive for a couple of hours, so we wouldn’t be out that long. You wouldn’t get too overtired.” Marcus found himself looking at Tito’s mother as eagerly as the boy was.
Candace tried to appear stern, but an indulgent smile played around the corners of her chapped lips. “If his levels are good, and if you don’t keep him out too long, I suppose it is okay,” she said. Gratitude shone out of shadow-haunted brown eyes. “You’re sure it is no trouble? I have to work most of the day, but I can drop him off at the dock on my way in and then he can go to my mom’s house afterward.”