Chapter 9: Garrett Miller Between the Courtyard Gate and His Son
Garrett stood between my wheelchair and the rest of the lobby, rainwater running from his leather jacket onto the polished floor. He had positioned himself so completely in the gap that I could see Trent only by looking past Garrett’s right arm. The broad shoulders that had filled the courtyard gate now blocked the fireplace, leaving me in a strip of shadow while heat pressed against my wet face.
Trent still held the antique brass key. He no longer dangled it. His fist had closed around it, with only the worn teeth showing beneath his little finger. The yellow rain cover lay across the arm of a leather sofa several feet away. Every Sigma Zeta member who had watched me through the glass remained in the lobby, but their arrangement had changed. They had spread out along the walls and furniture, giving Garrett room without admitting that they were retreating.
Garrett looked once toward Trent. His weight shifted in that direction.
Then my chair gave a faint electronic click.
Garrett turned back immediately.
He crouched beside the dead joystick console, ignoring Trent and the key. His fingers hovered over the wet housing without touching it. Water had collected around the rubber boot at the base of the stick. When I tried the power button, the indicator flashed once and vanished. The chair remained locked in place, its drive wheels resisting even the slight pressure of my body.
Garrett pulled off his gloves. He wiped his hands on the driest part of his shirt and reached toward the control cable, then stopped. He looked up at me first.
I understood the offer. I also understood what accepting it would mean: letting him take control of the machine that usually carried me where I chose to go.
I moved my right hand away from the joystick and placed it in my lap.
Garrett examined the cable without forcing the connection. He traced it beneath the armrest, checked the wet plug, and pressed the chair’s manual-release levers. When he tested the frame, it rolled half an inch. My stomach tightened at the movement, but he kept one hand against the backrest and the other on the wheel, holding me steady.
He took his jacket off and set it across my shoulders. I caught the collar before it slipped, but I did not push it away. The leather was cold and heavy on the outside. Inside, it held a little warmth.
That was the assistance I could accept.
Garrett pointed toward an open space near the fireplace, then glanced at me again. I nodded once. He moved behind the chair and began pushing slowly, keeping the wet console clear of his body. The fraternity members shifted to make a path. Their silence felt less like courtesy than calculation. Faces turned from my soaked shirt to the yellow cover, then to Trent’s closed hand.
We stopped close enough to the fire for warmth to reach my legs, but not so close that the chair’s wet upholstery began steaming. Garrett locked neither wheel. Instead, he remained behind me with both hands on the push handles, ready if the released motors let the chair drift.
Across the lobby, one fraternity member lifted a phone. He did not point its camera at us. He opened a blank message, entered the date and time, and held the screen where two others could see it. Another took a sheet of fraternity letterhead from a desk and set it beside the phone. No report had been filed, and no university official had arrived, but the possibility of a record had entered the room.
Garrett noticed. He looked down at the puddle beneath my chair, at the dead console, and at the rain cover still lying unused on the sofa. He took out his own phone and photographed them in that order. Then he photographed the brass key visible beneath Trent’s fist and the rain-streaked glass doors behind him.
Trent’s posture stiffened. The key disappeared fully into his palm.
Garrett did not move toward him.
Instead, he placed his phone on the low table beside me with the screen facing up. The four images remained visible. He retrieved the yellow cover from the sofa and laid it beside the phone rather than putting it over the chair, preserving the water marks and folds exactly as they were. Then he pulled a dry blanket from the back of another chair and offered it to me.
This time I took it myself.
Garrett stayed at my shoulder while I wrapped it around my chest. The temporary arrangement was plain: I would remain by the fire, the chair would stay in manual release, and he would stand close enough to keep it from moving. It solved the next few minutes and nothing beyond them. The console was still dead. My clothes were still soaked. I did not know why my father had come with fifty riders, and he had made no attempt to explain.
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Near the glass doors, the fraternity members watched Trent’s fist.
Then the member with the phone turned the unfinished message toward me, waiting for my decision about whether my name would be attached to the record.
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