9. Eli
CHAPTER 9
ELI
“ Y ou’re home early,” Maddie observed.
“I was able to get away.” Eli set his briefcase on the end table in the foyer. It felt much later than it was. He was used to walking into the house at ten o’clock or later, but tonight it was only eight thirty. “Is Charlie still up?”
“He’s not, I’m afraid,” Maddie said. “He’s been going to bed a little early these past few days.”
“Oh, really? How come?”
“Active days, I think,” Maddie said. “He’s been giving me the impression that he didn’t do as much on a daily basis with his last nanny.”
“That’s probably true,” Eli said. “I mean, I didn’t spend as much time with Katie as I have with you, and we didn’t talk that much about what they were doing together. But I know they didn’t cook together, and you and Charlie have made something of a routine out of that.”
“It’s true,” Maddie agreed. “We made a risotto today.”
“You made a risotto ?”
“Well, not a very good one.” Maddie grinned sheepishly. “It’s only the third time I’ve ever tried to make risotto.”
“Did Charlie eat that?”
“He did, actually! I think he liked it.”
“I’m surprised. A kid of his age eating something like that, I mean.”
“He’s got an adventurous palate, actually. You didn’t know?”
“I guess I didn’t,” Eli confessed.
Maddie didn’t express any surprise at the fact that he hadn’t known this about his son. Eli supposed she had gotten used to the fact that he didn’t know Charlie as well as he should. In the beginning, a story like this one would have prompted her to give him a strange look, but now she took it in stride. Eli didn’t know whether to feel better or worse about that. It was nice not to be constantly confronted with the fact that he was falling short of what she considered to be good parenting, of course. But on the other hand, it meant that Maddie had come to consider that sort of thing the norm from him. She had stopped looking for more than the bare minimum.
It was strange the way he had found himself wanting to impress her. He wanted to be a good father for Charlie’s sake, of course, but he also wanted Maddie to see him that way. He wanted her to look at him as a good parent, and to admire his relationship with Charlie. Little things like the fact that he didn’t understand his son’s eating habits were a source of embarrassment to him.
“I guess I still thought Charlie’s favorite foods were pizza and hot dogs,” he said.
“Oh, I think those are his favorites,” Maddie laughed. “Yesterday we made macaroni and cheese from a box and had it with tomato soup, and he told me it was the best thing we’ve cooked together so far.”
“Oh yeah?” Eli would keep that in mind. “Maybe we should put more of that box macaroni on the shopping list.”
“That might be a good idea. He loves kid food like that. But he’s also willing to try unfamiliar things, and that’s a little more unique for a kid his age. I guess it comes with the lifestyle he’s had.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know.” Maddie bit her lip and looked hesitant.
It was a complicated thing — Eli didn’t want her to feel hesitant to speak up, but at the same time, he was always so charmed when she made that face. It made him want to reach out to her, to reassure her that she didn’t need to feel any hesitation about saying whatever was on her mind. He wanted her to be comfortable talking to him about anything at all.
He waited, hoping that she would get over whatever was giving her pause. Trusting that she would. Maddie was confident and outspoken, and she always seemed to find the strength to say what needed to be said.
And this time, apparently, was no exception. “I just mean that Charlie is a kid who’s been raised with a lot of resources,” she explained. “A lot of opportunity. He’s been exposed to things most kids his age haven’t.”
“Oh, I see.” She was talking about the fact that he had money. No wonder it had made her feel a bit awkward.
“I’m not sure how aware you are about it,” Maddie said. “I’m sure it was the same for you growing up as it is for Charlie now, so you wouldn’t have the context of what a more typical childhood is like. I’m sure you grew up with the same kind of exposure to nice things as Charlie has had. And that’s a good thing,” she added quickly. “This isn’t criticism — of your upbringing or of his.”
“It wasn’t like that for me at all, actually,” Eli said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re talking as if you’re imagining that my parents had a lot of money when I was growing up, but it wasn’t like that for my family.”
“Oh,” Maddie said. “I’m sorry. I guess I was making an assumption. It’s just a little hard to picture you as middle-class.”
Eli shook his head. “Not middle-class.”
“No?”
Eli took a deep breath in and released it slowly. This was something he tried hard not to think about. It was something he had fought long and hard to leave in the past. He hadn’t spoken aloud about this part of his life in years.
“My father left when I was a baby,” he explained. “I was only a year old — I have no memory of him. My mother raised me on her own. She worked as a waitress — night shifts — so that she could be at home with me during the day.”
“Oh,” Maddie said softly. “I didn’t realize. I guess I thought…”
“You thought I had always had money.”
“Well… you seem so at home in this life.” Maddie looked rather apologetic. “I didn’t mean to imply anything — to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me. You didn’t say anything wrong.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have made the assumption that just because your life looks the way it does right now, it’s always been the same. It sounds like you overcame a lot.”
“It was hard growing up like that,” Eli said. It was tough to admit it. He hadn’t spoken like this to anyone in such a long time that it almost felt impossible that he was saying these things right now. It felt like something he would have daydreamed about saying, but not something he would ever have actually said.
And yet, it was happening, and he knew why. It was because of Maddie. She brought it out in him. She made him feel secure and confident enough that it was suddenly easy to open up about things that had happened a long time ago. Things that he had done his best to make himself forget.
Maddie was watching him, as though she intuited that he had more he wanted to say. And, Eli realized, he did. It had been so long since he had spoken about any of this, and he didn’t want to waste the moment now that it was here.
“The truth is,” he said, “it wasn’t always that bad. My mom and I were very close. I could feel, every day, how hard she was working for both of us. I grew up with such an appreciation for all her hard work. She’s always been my hero. But I also knew just how exhausting it was for her to be in that position. I can remember waking up in the morning on days when she hadn’t made it home from work yet. I would pour myself a bowl of cereal and she’d come in while I was eating it. She’d be dead on her feet. I have such a vivid memory of her collapsing into a kitchen chair at the end of her work day. I would get up and pour her a bowl of cereal, and even though I can imagine that’s probably the last thing she wanted after a whole day of work, she would always sit and eat it and talk to me. She’d tell me stories about her customers, and she would ask me what I was looking forward to from the day ahead. I’m sure all she wanted was to collapse into bed, but she always made sure to take that time with me.”
“She sounds like a very special woman.”
“I don’t think one woman in a thousand could equal her,” Eli said.
“Are you still close?”
“She died a few years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Thank you. I’m most sad about it when I think about the fact that she won’t get to see Charlie grow up. She loved him so much, and he won’t have many memories of her — though we have lots of pictures, of course.” He sighed. “Charlie has had a lot of loss in his life.”
“It always makes me so sad to see that he’s without his mother,” Maddie agreed. “He’s such a sweet kid. That must have been a very difficult thing for him to adjust to.”
“It’s been hard,” Eli agreed. “And it’s something else I feel bad about when I look at him. It’s hard that he’s away from me so much of the time, of course, but it’s also hard to see that he’s lost his mother. I just want to make sure that my son has everything in the world. And I know that, no matter how much I do — no matter how hard I work — he won’t have that.”
“I see,” Maddie murmured.
“You do?” What did she see?
“I just mean… this makes so much sense of the way you work so hard,” she explained. “With the way you grew up, of course you would do that. And especially with Charlie having suffered so many losses so early in life. I understand now. You want to make sure you provide him the best life possible — that you give him everything. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Eli agreed, happy that she had seen it — that she truly did seem to understand. She knew that he wasn’t working so hard out of selfishness or carelessness. It was all from a desire to provide Charlie with the sort of life and opportunities that he himself had never been given.
He would always remember what it had been like to go to bed hungry when his mother’s tips at the restaurant hadn’t been good. He would always remember the duty he had felt to pretend he didn’t need anything to eat so that his mother wouldn’t feel too bad about the fact that she hadn’t been able to buy groceries. He’d had friends at school who had felt bad about the meager lunches he used to bring and had given him an apple or a bag of chips from their own lunchbox. He had never wanted to allow his mother to know that was happening, because he had known how sad and ashamed she would feel about it, and he hated to think of the look that would appear on her face if she heard.
And when he had gotten older, he had vowed to himself that his own family would never go through the things he had.
It was the reason he’d worked so hard. He’d put in effort all through high school to make sure he would have the kind of grades that would enable him to earn a scholarship to a good college, knowing that his mother would never be able to afford to send him. He had spent months applying for scholarships and financial aid, and when he had gotten to school, he had thrown himself into his studies, all to make sure that he would be able to walk away with a great career. His plan had been that he would be able to care for a wife and children someday, but things hadn’t happened that way — his son had come along before he’d found a woman he had any romantic interest in. Still, it had been good to know that his hard work would pay off, and that Charlie would never want for anything.
“I can hardly blame you,” Maddie said.
“You thought it was something other than that,” Eli deduced.
“Well, yes, if you want to know. I sort of thought you were just a workaholic, or in love with your job or something. I thought you cared more about your job than you do about Charlie. But I get it now. You work as hard as you do because you care about Charlie.”
“I don’t want him to go through the things I went through,” Eli said. “I wouldn’t want it for anyone, but especially not my kid. I want to protect him from all the difficult and painful things in life. He should only ever experience good things.”
“You know that isn’t going to happen. Bad things happen to everyone. Charlie isn’t going to be exempt from that.”
“I know that,” Eli said. “I know I can’t protect him from everything. But I’m his father. It’s my job to protect him from as many things as I possibly can. And if that means I’m going to have to work all day every day for the rest of my life… well, I guess that’s just what I’m going to have to do. I care about Charlie more than anything in the world, and I’ll do whatever I need to do to make sure he has the best life possible.”