Chapter 4 #2
“We are his family,” Mom says. She’s shorter than Eli’s mom by several inches, but takes a step closer and gives her a look that makes it feel like she towers over the other woman, it’s so scalding. “Eli is my son in every way that matters, and I won’t stand here and let you suggest otherwise.”
“Go Mom,” Janet says under her breath. She looks at Hugh, who’s staring at all of us with wide eyes, and grabs his hand to lead him to the door. Probably best she gets him outside, away from the yelling I think is coming.
I can see the fight ramping up inside Mom. If they press this, she’ll go after them and give them the verbal lashing I know she’s been dying to. The vindictive part of me wants it to happen. I think part of Eli does too.
“We’re leaving,” Eli’s father says. “Elliot, let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Eli says, snapping angry eyes to his father.
“I told you he’s become insufferably obstinate,” Uncle Remington says.
“What I’ve become is aware of just how wrong this ‘family’ is. You’re never here.”
“We have to travel for work,” his mother says.
“You have to travel because it’s the only excuse you have not to see me!” Eli yells.
“Don’t raise your voice at your mother!” Uncle Remington says in a voice close to a shout.
I can’t stand back any longer. “Seems like that’s the only way she hears him!
” I explode, staring the man down. Eli’s mother looks like she’s been struck, now, staring at Eli with pinched brows.
I focus on his horrible uncle, letting the fury inside me rear back and roar.
Time for a wake-up call they can’t ignore.
“He didn’t even want to invite the three of you today, and do you know why?
He had no faith you would come! He did it because my mom asked.
He has no faith in you, despite wanting so desperately for you to be the family he deserves. ”
“Jack—”
“They need to hear it,” I insist, over Mom’s voice.
“They do,” she says, before I can continue. Her voice is hard, and when I glance at her, I see fire in her eyes. “But let me say it. Eli, I didn’t want to do this in front of you, but I can see we already are. I’m sorry for that.”
Eli’s fingers skim over my palm, and I slot my hand with his.
Mom fixes her gaze on Eli’s uncle, who seems momentarily speechless.
“You’re cruel and emotionally abusive to your nephew.
I probably have more I could say to you than to his parents, since you’re the one who sees him every day, but I don’t think you care what I say.
I don’t need to know you well to tell you’re a despicable man.
The way you’ve spoken to Eli today, or more accurately, barely said a word, is enough to show that.
I don’t think telling you off will do anything to change you.
But know that if I hear you’ve continued to hurt him as you have been, I’ll pay you a visit and tell you off anyway. Just for me.”
Uncle Remington tries to speak several times, but Mom gets louder with each attempt and says it all, and fixes him with the most terrifying look I’ve ever seen once she finishes. Eli’s hand tightens in mine.
Mom could definitely be a teacher. A scary one.
She has Eli’s entire family listening with full, if grudging, attention.
She turns to Eli’s parents. “You have a wonderful son, but I don’t think you realize it.
You may think providing for him financially is enough.
It isn’t. He wants your attention. He needs it. ”
“He knows we love him,” Eli’s mother says.
“You got the day wrong for his birthday,” I growl.
Mom shoots a look at me and I clench my jaw to keep from jumping in again. Next to me, Eli is as tense as I’ve ever seen him, his hand fastened to mine like a lifeline.
“Do you tell your son you love him?” Mom asks, barbed wire in her tone. “Some families don’t say it, but they know it all the same, because they do little things that make it clear. You’re not here to show it. So tell me, do you tell him you love him, just because?”
“I . . .”
“I didn’t think so. You have a choice to make,” Mom continues, still in that hardened voice.
Some of her anger has slipped beneath the surface.
“Maybe you didn’t realize you were hurting your son, but there’s no denying it now, which leaves you with a choice: change your behavior, or pretend this never happened.
It’s your decision. Are you going to be the parents he deserves? ”
Eli’s father flinches. His mother stares at Mom with an open mouth, and shifts her dewy eyes to Eli. “Sweetheart,” she says in a pleading tone, “you have to understand—”
“Please leave,” Eli says. He isn’t looking at his family, instead burning a hole in the floor.
“Elliot,” Eli’s father says.
“Please,” Eli says again, harsher. His voice is strong, but I hear the strain crackling beneath it, the needle catching on the grooves in the vinyl.
“Don’t have to beg me,” Uncle Remington says. A hot spike of hatred goes through me. I could punch him.
“We’ll be at the house,” Eli’s mother says. “We don’t leave until tomorrow.”
Eli still doesn’t shift his gaze, but gives a terse nod. His family leaves without another word.
“Eli . . .” I start, at least a minute after the sound of the car doors slamming shut has faded.
He looks at me, and then at Mom, and the agony in his face strangles the words in my throat.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“You have nothing to be sorry—”
Mom pulls him close to her chest, cradling his head. Tears well in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Mom says in a quiet voice. “I should never have said that in front of you.”
Moisture clings to his dark eyelashes. “You didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“But it might,” he says. His voice is climbing, pleading, breaking. The perfect stillness of his posture cracks, a tremor visible in his shoulders. “They finally heard—you said what they needed—so they might—”
Mom holds him tighter than she ever has as his voice cuts off and tears run down his cheeks.
“I hope they do,” she says, rubbing circles on his back. “I really hope they do.”
A sob escapes him at that. I see Widget’s tail peeking out from the kitchen and move as silently as I can. He comes out from beneath the kitchen table and crawls onto my lap when I sit on the floor.
It’s not the privacy I should give Eli right now. I can’t bring myself to move farther away. I need to be near enough to rush to him as soon as Mom lets him go, to reassure him myself that he’s loved. This at least gives the illusion of privacy, with a wall between us.
Every hitch in Eli’s breathing stabs into me.
I scratch behind Widget’s ears, focusing on the lively little chihuahua to distract from Eli’s pain.
I pet him enough to make him roll over and show his belly with a playful whine, and release a breath of a laugh as it makes him roll off my lap and onto the floor.
Widget shakes himself and rolls over again, belly exposed.
My brief laugh is followed by silence. I lean forward to rub Widget’s belly, listening carefully. “It’s all right,” Mom says, in a more normal voice.
Widget’s tail swishes like a pendulum on the floor, and his mouth hangs open. “You look ridiculous,” I tell him.
His tail thumps.
“Be extra cute like this for Eli the rest of the day,” I whisper to him. “He needs us right now.”
“I always need you.”
I jump. Widget startles and rolls to his feet.
Eli stands just behind me, leaning against the section of the wall that sticks out to create the illusion of rooms between the entrance hallway and the kitchen. His eyes are red and his voice is still unsteady, but the agony that had floored me before is gone.
I launch to my feet and throw my arms around him anyway.
His fingers nest in my shirt, nose pressing against my neck.
I feel the rapid beating of his heart through my palm on his back.
He doesn’t say anything. I don’t either.
Mom doesn’t come into the kitchen, probably trying to give us a moment.
We just hold each other tightly, until his grip on my shirt loosens and his heart has settled to a normal beat.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask once he pulls back.
He lightly presses his lips to mine. “Not yet,” he says. “My family ruined the first part of our Thanksgiving feast. I won’t let them ruin the second. Think we can have dessert soon?”
“Is that a real question? You go tell the others we need sweets. I’ll get the plates everyone left on the table.”
“I can help with that.”
I push him forward. “Go tell the others you want dessert, Eli.”
He casts a soft smile over his shoulder, and my heart does a flip. “Okay.”