I have news about Myrtle and Darron. It has taken a few days for me to get an assessment of what is really going on between them, but I believe I have enough information now to make it worth passing on.
Darron did not reply immediately to Myrtle’s text. There was nothing the following day, which made Myrtle disgruntled. Jaquinn noticed the mood, but did not question it—he is coming to learn how to read Myrtle, when to press and when to leave her be. I am proud of that in him.
He knew what it meant, then, when in the middle of their date on Sunday evening, a text made Myrtle stop and stare at her phone, then glance quickly up at him. She was afraid that he would think the text was from one of her previous partners—and as a side note, that fear encourages me, as only a few months before, she would have made a point of not caring what he thought of her contacts with other men. But he saw that this was something different, and he set his plate aside.
“You gotta deal with that?” he said, very casually.
She was relieved, and her smile warmed him. “Yeah. You mind?” They make a point of paying attention to one another at meals, not their phones.
“Nah. Should I go?”
“No,” Myrtle said, quick enough to startle them both. She was especially surprised to realize that she wanted him there. Still, she wanted it badly enough that she did not try to recover pride. “Stay.”
With some help from me, he heard her silent plea to ask no questions. He does, after all, know a bit of the history between Myrtle and her family, and was beginning to guess what was happening. “Sure. I’ll clean up, if you’re not hungry anymore.”
She wasn’t, and so Jaquinn set to work while Myrtle looked at her brother’s text.
Thanks, Murry. You okay?
I gather that Murry is a nickname she used to carry, rather reluctantly, in her teenage years. The sight of it made her snort, but it also relieved some of her anxieties. She texted back immediately, falling back into the patterns of taunt and tease that so often define the relationships between siblings.
So she spent the rest of the evening catching up with Darron, with Jaquinn sticking close, present but unobtrusive. Sometimes Darron made her laugh, sometimes she frowned, but both kept the conversation casual. On Myrtle’s side, at least, that had something to do with me—as with Pamela and William, I want these two to have a stronger connection before they reference anything difficult.
Since that night, I have indeed located Darron, thanks in part to the Guardian who has been looking after him, whose name is Inca. She is an Archangel, quite fiercely beautiful, and protects him from dangers in the rough neighborhood where he lives.
“He is a good boy,” Inca told me. “Quite a lot of promise. That draws attention from things from which one does not want attention.”
She did not elaborate on that, but her presence was enough explanation. I did not particularly want to know more, anyway.
Inca tells me that Darron is two years into his education, working his way through as Lamarr did. Every morning, Darron gets up and walks to class; every afternoon, he heads to work, serving food in a small but clean restaurant in Chicago. Every evening, he calls or texts his mother, and once a month, he writes a small check and sends it to the tiny house where she lives in rural Iowa.
I spent some time with Darron. He is a quiet, thoughtful young man, generally contented with his lot, hard though it is. His goal is to be a social worker, and any spare hours he has go to volunteering with children in the poorer parts of the city. He has a girlfriend, Sara, and he is very good to her—they are already talking about getting married.
Much to my surprise, he also emails his father once a week, sharing news and asking for news in return. He doesn’t often get a reply, but sometimes they will talk on the phone. They are not on very good terms, but at least there is a conversation. As far as I can tell, the only reason Darron has not also reached out to Myrtle is because she made it very clear at the time of their argument that she did not want to hear from him.
Darron was very surprised, but gratified to hear from his sister. His hesitation to reply came out of his natural caution and his wish not to scare her away again. He is very glad, though, that she is willing to talk to him again, and much of his mental energy these past days has gone to her and what he will say next.
It is a bit confusing to me. I do not think that Myrtle is in the wrong about their mother—she was the guilty party, the cause of all their pain and misery in the past. But Darron seems to have forgotten all of that. Is it simply that he is more capable of forgiveness than Myrtle? Or was he less hurt than she was? I do not know yet, but I do intend to find out. When I know more, so will you.