Page 16 of Seasonal Fears

The neckline is so high as to be more than appropriate and step over the line into modest, and he’s confident she’ll still be the hottest girl at the dance, and that will make him the hottest guy there, through the transitive property of high school hotness. He holds out her corsage in silence, relieved to see that whatever’s wrong with his boutonniere hasn’t spread; the buds are still tightly closed, the leaves still furled. She raises an eyebrow as she takes it, nodding toward the flowers at his lapel, and he shrugs. It’s not the first time something small has gone horribly wrong when it was left for him to handle. It won’t be the last.

“You look amazing,” he says, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth and forcing himself to remember how words are formed. “That dress is … It’s just … Wow.”

“You like it?” Melanie does a little twirl, still holding the boxed corsage in one hand. “I was afraid it might be too dowdy.”

It stretches almost to the floor, covering the straps holding her heels to her feet, and he knows most of the other girls will be in knee-length dresses despite the weather, especially the rest of the cheer squad. They’ve been competing to see who can get the closest to the exact dress code cutoff for hemlines for years, and have managed to get it down to an eighth of an inch. She’s so much more covered than they’re going to be, and he doesn’t care, because she wears that dress like it’s the only style that should ever be seen at a school dance.

“You’re perfect,” he says, with fervor.

“You’ll have her home by ten,” says Roland. “Not ten-thirty, not ten-oh-five, ten. Do I make myself clear?”

Harry knows this part of the script. “Yes, sir,” he says.

“Be careful with her tonight, Harry. She likes to put on a brave face for you, but she’s not doing well.” Roland’s voice is serious, like he’s imparting some grave and profound wisdom.

“Daddy!” protests Melanie, and smacks him on the arm.

“It’s true, and Harald deserves to know if you’re going to let him take you out,” says Roland. “You’re sick, Melanie. You have to admit that.”

Harry doesn’t know if other parents do things this way, constantly remind their children that they aren’t well. His parents never do, but then, the worst thing he’s ever had to deal with is a broken arm, and it was sort of hard for him to pretend it wasn’t broken when it was encased in plaster and itched like it was covered in angry ants. Mel will absolutely push herself if she’s allowed. He just doesn’t think it’s his job to stop her. He’s her boyfriend, not her keeper.

“Yes, sir,” he says anyway, and it’s as much of a lie as it always is, and Roland nods, appearing to accept it at face value the way he always does, and this part of the ritual of getting out of the house is finally complete.

“Take a coat, Melanie, you know your system isn’t strong enough to handle a cold right now,” says Roland.

“I have a wrap, Daddy,” says Melanie, with a roll of her eyes. She leaves her corsage in its box as she retrieves the wrap in question from the hook where she had it hanging, anticipating this moment.

Experience has shown them both that if she comes down in short sleeves, Roland will demand a sweater, and if she comes down in a sweater, he’ll tell her to put on a jacket. Coming down as unprepared as possible is the only way they’ve found to get out of the house without bundling her up against an Arctic cold that doesn’t exist in Portland and probably wouldn’t bother her if it did.

“Ten, and not a second later,” says Roland, eyes on Harry.

“Yes, sir,” says Harry, who isn’t going to waste time arguing; they’ll already be hard-pressed to make it to the dance on time after his family finishes their pictures. He offers Mel his hand. “Ready to go?”

“Always was,” says Melanie, and takes his hand, waving her corsage at her father in a farewell.

(It’s far more final than any of them realizes in this moment, which marks almost as much of a divide between who they were and who they’re going to be as William Monroe’s death did, but understanding is so often a construct of distance, and right here, right now, they have no distance; they have no space; they have only time, which is moving, second by second, into the spring.)

“Bye, Daddy,” chirps Melanie.

Roland smiles, softens, looks for a moment like the doting father Melanie has always known. “Bye, princess,” he says, and watches as Harry whisks her out the door, into the cool February night. They pause on the porch to drape the wrap—a length of wine-colored fabric that matches her dress—around her shoulders, and then they’re away, heading for his car at the foot of the driveway.

“Does he know?” Harry asks softly, once the door is closed and they’re far enough from the house that her father shouldn’t be able to hear them.

Melanie shakes her head. “No, and you’re not going to tell him. He doesn’t need to know.”

(Inside the house, Roland Cosgrove’s phone is ringing. He’ll answer it as soon as he sees Harry pull out of the driveway, as soon as he knows his precious girl has been well and truly handed off to someone else’s care. For now, he watches them go, and wishes he didn’t have to let her. Wishes she was a good science experiment, obedient and biddable and willing to stay where he puts her. That’s the trouble with making people, whether children or constructs. They never listen in the end.)

“Your doctors—”

“Will tell him if anything shows up on the scans,” says Melanie, and opens the passenger side door of his car. She doesn’t drive. Her father never approved her learning how, and given how often she blacks out, it’s not safe. She can’t even be the base of a pyramid for fear that she’ll have one of her episodes and drop someone. Putting her behind the wheel of a car would be inviting trouble.

Harry’s shown her the basics in the Target parking lot, and the experience left them both shaken enough that they mutually agreed not to do it again.

Melanie slides into the car. Harry frowns as he watches her, and waits until she’s settled before he follows, positioning himself behind the wheel. The cab is much cooler than it was on the drive over, and he shivers as he fastens his belt. “My place for pictures?”

“I knew who I was going to the dance with when I said yes,” said Mel, smiling. He turns on the engine and pulls out of the driveway and her smile drops away, replaced by an expression of seriousness so pronounced it makes him uneasy, makes his stomach do a slow and uncomfortable flip. She looked that way on the day she told him her illness was terminal, that without a second heart transplant, she’d be leaving him before they could go off to college, much less get married and live together in Castleview like he’d been saying. She looked that way the day she came home and said she’d been put on reserve by the cheer team, still allowed to wear the uniform and show up for game days, no longer allowed to compete.

If there’s a scholar of the expressions of Melanie Cosgrove, it’s Harald March. He’s been making note of her face for his entire life, has grown up so familiar with her smile that he might as well wear it himself, and he knows nothing good ever comes from that degree of gravity. He wants to make a joke, wants to break the tension before she can say whatever terrible thing she’s about to say, and he doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know what would work. Not when she looks so serious, not when her eyes are so sad.