Page 161 of The Menagerie

Mal kicks off from the ground, starting up a gentle swing with each pump of his legs. Rowan watches him while he sways.

“How’d you find that place, anyway?” Rowan asks. He figures it’ll be a safer subject to talk about than yesterday.

At first, Mal doesn’t say anything. Simply swings higher and higher, until he’s nearly level with the top of the swing set, the wooden frame creaking ominously. On one particularly big swing, Rowan thinks he’s going to go all the way over. But then he stills his legs, letting gravity pull him back to earth in progressively smaller, sweeping arcs. He heaves a sigh as he finally stills next to Rowan, stirring up the wood chips on the ground with his feet.

“When I left with Amy, I didn’t know where to go,” he says, voice nearly drowned out by the wind. When it calms down a minute later, he continues, staring straight ahead into the jungle gym across the park. “Didn’t really have any other family that wasn’t connected to Larry in some way, so we took the T all the way here. Walked for what felt like fuckin’ miles lookin’ for a hotel or something and wound up at Sheila’s since it was the only place open. Turns out the Back Bay doesn’t really do seedy, cheap motels.”

Rowan snorts in acknowledgment, but lets Mal continue.

“So we walk in, two pathetic-ass-looking runaways. Might as well have been soaked through with rain and shivering for how sad we must’a looked. Anyway we ordered some food with the money I’d stolen before we left and ended up sitting there forhours.”

“She didn’t kick you out?”

“No.” Mal turns to look at Rowan, eyes full of disbelief still, after all this time. “Said she heard us talkin’ and wonderin’ where we were gonna go. ’Bout me gearing up to steal a car to crash in for the night. But instead, she fuckin’ just… took us in.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. Let us stay the night in her office. Had a pull-out couch and blankets. And a fuckin’ safe and everything sittin’ right there.”

“You weren’t tempted to steal it?” Rowan asks.

Mal sways side to side in his swing. “She told me she emptied it the other day, but if the cash was all there in the morning, she’d give me a job and let us stay.”

“Jesus, I knew she was nice, but that’s actual saint shit.”

Mal hums. “I know. Couldn’t believe it. But you bet I didn’t touch that fuckin’ safe. Started workin’ there the next morning. Got Amy enrolled in a new school using the diner’s address, which thankfully no one fuckin’ questioned back then.”

“What’d you do for work?”

“Started washin’ dishes and shit. Bussing tables, cleaning, cooking sometimes when they were short-staffed. She couldn’t pay much, but she let us eat whatever we wanted, which was almost worth more with how expensive food is here.”

“Sounds like you had it pretty good.”

His nod of agreement is evidence enough, but he adds, “Yeah. Fuckin’ sucked sharin’ a pull-out couch with my sister, though.”

“I know the feeling. Had to share beds with all my siblings at one point or another.”

Huffing a little laugh and twirling himself around in a circle, crisscrossing the chains, Mal commiserates, “Fuckin’ Southie, man.”

“How long’d you stay there?”

“’Bout a year.”

Rowan whistles. “You finally save up enough to move out on your own?”

The wind howls, blowing a small pile of fallen leaves around the swing set. Mal dips down and picks one up, pulling the crunchy pieces off of the veins one by one.

“Couple months in, I started lookin’ at her ledgers and saw she was massively in the fucking red. Helped her adjust her pricing, make some changes to the menu, and negotiate with her suppliers so she’d actually start makin’ some real money.”

“Damn, Mal.”

“Started saving up then,” he adds.

Rowan doesn’t know how to put into words how he’s feeling. He’s a little blown away, to be honest. First Sheila’s, then the Menagerie? Mal may have a trauma-and-street-hardened outer shell and an attitude that could scare the collar off a priest, but he has a heart of gold. Seems like he always has too. Rowan wants so badly to see more of it.

“What?” Mal asks, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Nothin’. Just… you’re a good person, is all.”

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