“You will contact me immediately if there is any change, as we agreed?” Like his mother, he was a fast adherent to verbal agreements.
“Of course, Moshe. Of course.” She delivered the lie with all the aplomb of his mother.
* * *
DAPHNE EXITED THE hospital that afternoon, wondering if she should do an about-face and check herself in. She ached to the bone, her tracksuit hung on her like garb for a homeless vagrant and she was light-headed enough to either sink to the warm cement or float off.
She was checking for the taxi she’d ordered when Mel Greene rounded the corner of the building from the parking lot. He was alone. Strange to see him without someone, as if he had a missing limb. He had shifted so smoothly between the nurse, the police officers, the restaurant employee and her that somehow she’d got it stuck in her mind that he was always with people.
He waved, and Daphne waved back. As if they were old friends. Had he come to see her? Or Fran? But why visit a cranky woman he didn’t know? Somebody else, then? She ought to speak to him. Update him on Fran. On The Stagecoach. Thank him for his help. Old friends had less to talk about.
Her taxi pulled up. “A moment,” she said to the driver as he emerged. “I need to speak with—” she wondered how to refer to Mel “—my friend.”
She turned to catch the guarded surprise on Mel’s face. “I acknowledge that’s not the most appropriate term,” she said.
“It’ll do for now,” he said and extended his hand to her. “We haven’t met properly. I’m Mel. Mel Greene.”
She decided to not let on that she knew his name as his hand, large and warm, wrapped around hers. It would only prove how much more significant he was in her life than she in his. “Daphne Merlotte.”
Mel carried on to the taxi driver and held out his hand. “Hello. How are you today?”
The man in a tunic and head scarf stared at Mel’s hand as one would stare at an unknown but sweet-smelling food. Daphne felt for him. Who made such an expansive gesture to a total stranger for no apparent reason? Was it a cultural faux pas on Mel’s part, or was it simply something Mel did? And if so, why hadn’t he done the same to her when they first met? Was it because she was wearing the hideous nightie, and was she overthinking this?
“I—I’m...fine,” the driver stuttered. As if to prove it, he thrust his hand into Mel’s and gave it a quick shake.
Stepping away from each other, the two men regarded Daphne. “Fran’s checked in, and I was returning to Spirit Lake,” she said to Mel. “To attend to the RV,” she added.
“I parked it over at the town campsite. I can drop you off there easy enough, and give you the keys. I had to come into Red Deer to pick up a few things and thought I’d swing by.”
He really had come to see her—Fran—them. So expansive gestures to strangers were part of his nature. The taxi driver frowned at Daphne. Fran pulled the same look when Daphne was on the cusp of refusing her. She handed the driver a ten-dollar bill. “To cover me calling you here.”
His lips thinned. Daphne kept the money outstretched.
“Seems fair to me,” Mel said.
The taxi driver snatched the bill from her fingers and muttered his thanks through gritted teeth. He pulled away and Mel waved, as if the man was family leaving home. The driver lifted his hand in farewell.
Mel turned to the hospital doors. “How is she?”
“As well as can be expected.”
Mel pulled on his baseball cap. “Not sure who’s expecting what.”
“You do know that Fran has terminal cancer? You were there when she told Linda.”
“Yes. Only—” he nudged his cap up to show his face more “—I’ve not much experience with Fran, and I want her to feel easy around me.”
Daphne felt as the taxi driver must’ve—surprised by kindness. “But you mustn’t feel obliged to visit her at all.”
This time when he smiled at her, it was too weak to reach his laugh lines. “I know. I guess... My mom died of cancer, but she had her family around her...and Fran doesn’t have that.”
“I’m family,” Daphne said, more sharply than she intended. “I mean, we treat each other like family.” Or, at least, Fran and Frederick, when he’d been alive, had invited Daphne to their family functions, and she’d tried to fit in. Into a corner with a good book.
Mel pulled on his baseball cap. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
She was annoyed that he’d spotted a disconnect between Fran and Daphne. Still, she could hardly blame him for that. “No offense taken. She’s sleeping right now. She does in the afternoon, at any rate.” She suddenly remembered her good news. “Oh, and they’ve also increased her pain medication, which means she can’t possibly travel for the next five days until her body adjusts.”
“Oh.” Mel scratched his temple. “I don’t know if—”
“Yes,” Daphne said. “I completely agree. The good news is I have five days to think of a way to delay her further.”
Mel was staring at her with his full hazel scrutiny. The Edward Ferrars look. Wait. Had Austen noted the color of his eyes? Or Mr. Darcy’s? Or any of them? Surely after her endless readings, she ought to remember something as basic as that. Had she been so absorbed in issues of metatexts and contexts and textualizations and intertextualities that she’d overlooked a simple character description?
“You all right?” Mel asked. Was his voice softer than normal? What was normal for him?
She tugged her sweatshirt off her belly and her buttocks.
“As well as can be expected,” she said and when his hand drifted to his cap, she added, “Fine. A little tired but fine.”
“Should we head home, then?”
The casual drop of his question made Daphne think for a split second that it was possible, inevitable really, that he would bring her home. Off they’d go to Halifax to start a carefree life together of doughnuts and books and baseball caps.
Then she looked around at where she was. “Sure. I’d appreciate a ride back to the motor home.”
* * *
SHE WAS SHORT, no doubt about it.
From the corner of his eye, Mel watched Daphne climb into his company truck. She’d waited for the running board to descend and now gave herself a heave into the seat. She launched herself sideways to catch the open door and pull it closed. Her feet dangled, her flip-flops hung from her toes, and she quickly tucked them under the seat.
She was no bigger than his twelve-year-old nephew. Mind, with all the soft curves, you wouldn’t mistake her for a boy.
“I have never seen so many trucks in all my days,” she said, “than I have since crossing into Manitoba about two weeks ago.”
“Is that right?” Mel said, easing out of the parking lot. “You know, I’ve never been down East. What’s it like?” He tried to make it sound as if he’d been everywhere else but there. The fact was he’d not even made it to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, three and a half hours east. He was probably the only healthy male adult in all of Spirit Lake who’d never got a passport. He’d wanted to travel when he was young, but he’d never had the time and money. Then when he had both, no one else could get away, and he didn’t see the point of experiencing new places alone. Or his friends or family wanted to go to a place that required flying, which terrified the socks off him. It was an irrational fear, but he figured everyone was entitled to one or two.
“Canada,” Daphne said, producing sunglasses from a purse