Author's Note: Whoa, long time, no see? Well, here I am, back and ready to write. I'm slowly winding this epic down; in this chapter, you can see a few connections between little Roger and musical-era Roger and you can sense that the story is coming to its climax. I hope to have another chapter up within the week-- then a short hiatus for my Europe and New York trips, but I'll try my damndest to finally finish this thing. Please, if you still care, leave me some reviews with your thoughts and ideas. So much thanks and love!
"So, today's the day, huh?"
Mark winced. Muriel, wearing her usual expression of repressed amusement, walked toward him. He could tell that she was going to pump him for information, and he knew that he'd give it to her. No one could evade Muriel for long.
"Yeah," Mark replied weakly. "Today's the day."
"What've you got there?"
Mark grunted. "Baseball cards."
"Baseball cards? Honey, I think Mr. Davis is gonna need a little bit more than baseball cards to get him through the next few months."
"Yeah," Mark admitted. He looked around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Where is he?"
Muriel smiled. "He's still in his room. I think he may be suffering some separation anxiety."
They both laughed nervously, and Muriel laid a friendly hand on the boy's shoulder as they headed toward Roger's room. Mark took a deep breath as he entered, moving his thumb over the album's rough edge. Roger sat on his hospital bed, swinging his legs back and forth, back and forth. He was wearing the clothes his mother had absentmindedly left for him on her last visit; a pair of ratty jeans and a white undershirt. A red baseball cap was positioned tactfully on his head, the bill covering what was left of his facial injuries. Mark shivered. Roger's gaunt appearance reminded him of the junkies he'd seen once on a trip to the city. He was so pale and thin that there hardly seemed to be a boy underneath the clothes. Muriel squeezed Mark's shoulder, and Roger looked up from his knees.
"Hi."
"Hi," Mark whispered. He cleared his throat. "Hi."
"Well, Mr. Davis, do you think that you're ready to go?" Muriel asked cheerily.
Roger shrugged. "I don't really have too much of a choice, do I?"
"No, you don't," Muriel admitted.
"I don't," Roger repeated. His eyes darted toward Mark. "Did you- did you bring my baseball cards?"
Mark held up the binder, and Roger nodded.
"Then you have everything?" Muriel pressed.
"Yeah, I guess," he replied stoically. Muriel eyed him suspiciously, and he immediately perked up. "Yep! Definitely!"
The heavyset nurse smiled. She wasn't fooled. "Well, then let's get you boys out of here."
Roger climbed off of the bed, steadying himself on his crutches. Mark started to follow Muriel, but Roger caught his elbow before he could get too far ahead. Muriel kept walking; Mark knew that she would keep walking and give them their privacy. She was concerned about Roger, but she knew that she couldn't do anything by pushing him too far. He sighed and turned toward Roger. His stomach felt as if it had dropped through his feet.
Looking around the room, Roger took his baseball cards and started leafing through them, doing his best to look nonchalant. "Is everything-- are they okay? I mean, is Adam doing all right?"
Mark nodded. "They miss you. They want you to come home."
Roger sighed uncomfortably. "Annie? Matthew hasn't tried--"
"Once," Mark interrupted quickly. He started at the white toes of Roger's sneakers. "Adam said he tried something once, but that he stopped him."
"Oh God."
"He wasn't hurt, Roger," Mark amended. "Neither was Annie."
"That's not the point," Roger hissed. He was frustrated. "Sure, they were okay when you saw them, but who's to say that nothing else has happened?"
Mark shrugged. "I don't know, Roger."
"Adam's so little. You probably couldn't see what that chicken shit did to him. He knows how to hide it; he learned from the best."
Mark flinched. Adam had learned from the best. Everything about Roger screamed that he had been hurt, but there was absolutely no way to know where or how. He took great pains to hide his scars, inside and out. A baseball cap to hide his face, tucking in his tee-shirt so it wouldn't reveal any of his bruises. His expression never changed. Always even keel. Instead, he turned it all inward. Mark could relate. He knew what it was like to face a thankless world alone. "Look. I couldn't--"
Roger rolled his eyes impatiently. "You couldn't what?"
"Your mom is home with them. Matthew broke Annie's tea set, and I guess he tried to use one of the pieces to-"
Roger winced. "Cut."
Mark studied his friend carefully. "Yeah."
"He did that to me once," Roger said distantly. He fingered his forearm self-consciously, and for the first time, Mark noticed a shiny white scar running from Roger's elbow to his wrist. He bit his lip.
"I gotta go home," the other boy replied.
"Roger! You can't!" Mark exclaimed. His head snapped up and he suddenly felt alert. "You can't go home. He'll kill you."
"So what if he does? At least if he kills me they'll have something to put him away for. It's better than someone coming in and splitting us up, taking us away from Mom."
"You don't care about yourself at all, do you?"
"Not really. I'm not that important, Mark. I'm one person, and I figure I have one job. What I do to get it done is my business, and what I do afterward doesn't really matter."
Mark sighed. For the first time in his life, he felt exasperated. He needed to take care of Roger. There was no other option. "But don't you want anything?"
"I want my brother and sister to be safe."
"For yourself, Roger."
Roger was quiet for a moment. He closed his baseball card album, and looked at Mark before turning away to shove the binder into his duffle bag. "I don't want to feel it anymore. When he hurts me, I don't want to feel it."
xxx
As they sauntered out of the hospital room, neither boy could look at the other. Muriel watched them carefully from the nurses' station. They walked so close to one another, but they didn't say anything. Roger was gripping the braces on his crutches with all his might, gazing at the oft-offensive air that was blocking his path. Mark, for once in his life, didn't look at the floor. He was staring straight ahead, clutching Roger's duffle to his chest, but it wasn't really clear what he was looking at.
"I guess this is it, boys," Muriel said evenly, approaching them the way an experienced hunter approaches sensitive prey. Both heads snapped toward her, two pairs of eyes wide as saucers. "Well, don't look so shocked. We all knew that this moment would come eventually."
Mark pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. "Bye, Muriel."
"G'bye, Mark, m'dear," Muriel replied. She wrapped her arm around the smaller boy and gave him a pointed look. "You'll have to come back and talk to me soon. And I mean soon."
Mark shrank, but gave her a weak smile.
"Look, I'm gonna go get you some Jell-O for the road. Mr. Davis, why don't you come with me real quick? I'm gonna need some time to give you an appropriate sendoff."
Roger groaned, but followed the heavyset nurse down the hall. He looked over his shoulder at Mark, who had thrown himself into a chair and was shaking his head.
"So you're ready then?"
"Yeah, Muriel, I'm ready. How many times do you need to ask?"
Muriel sped around a corner. She wanted to smack the young man next to her, but she could guess that he'd had enough of that in his young life. "Mr. Davis, I think that there might be something you need to tell me."
"Nope. Why would there be?"
"Roger, have you ever heard of social services?" Muriel asked quietly. She pushed through the white, swinging doors to the hospital cafeteria. Roger stopped walking. She turned back.
"What did you say?"
"Social services, honey," Muriel repeated. Her tone was cautious; she couldn't see Roger's face from under his baseball cap, but she sure he must be glaring at her. "I think that they could hel-"
"Why would I need social services?"
"I'm not stupid, Mr. Davis. You need to be on the level with somebody, because you're certainly not on the level with your mother or even with Mark, who seems to care an awful lot about you. You told me that your step-father 'does things' to you, and it's pretty obvious what those 'things' are. Now, either you're gonna tell me what you've been dealing with and we'll make the call together, or I'll do it myself. Either way, it's going to stop. You should not be scared to go home."
Roger glared at her. "I'm not scared to go home. And I don't want to call social services."
"But Roger-"
"No. They're not going to take her away."
"Her? Roger, who-"
Muriel tried to reach out for the boy, but he slid backward. "It doesn't matter. If you call them, I'll just tell them that you don't know what you're talking about. 'Cause you don't. You don't get it, Muriel."
"I know every scar on your body, Mr. Davis."
"Leave me alone!"
"Look, kid, I don't know what it is that's eating you, but whatever it is, you can't keep it inside like you've been doing. First of all, it isn't good for you. Second of all, it's really beginning to get under my skin. Mr. Davis, I like you. You're a great young man, but you're gonna wind up being an angry young man with a chip on his shoulder and fear in his heart if you don't stop trying to take this on all by yourself."
"Nobody else will," Roger muttered. "I'm leaving, okay? Mark can just live without his Jell-O."
Roger clomped down the hall as fast as his crutches would carry him. Muriel knew that it wouldn't be the last time in his life that he would run away from the truth. She shook her head, and made her way to the nearest phone.
"Karen? It's Muriel. I have a situation."
