30. The Picture
The Picture
ELLIE
Icouldn’t sleep, of course. But part of that was because I didn’t try. I camped outside Tommy’s room, in the darkened hallway. After he came out the first time, he’d stopped short, then slammed the door again.
The second time, he pulled the food inside.
The third he came out into the hallway and sat across from me.
He was quiet for a good ten minutes, and so was I.
I could hear, faintly, the movie Sam had put on upstairs, after I insisted he didn’t have to go to bed at nine like me.
Part of me had wanted to sit up there with him, to feel his arm around me as we said nothing at all, watching a nonsense movie and the monitors and pretending this was what we did every Friday night until the end of time.
But now I was grateful I’d decided to sit out here, even though my butt was killing me.
“Do you want to talk?” I asked Tommy, after a few minutes of more silence.
He shook his head, then lowered it onto his arms, which were wrapped around his knees.
I took a risk and shifted over so I was sitting beside him. A moment later he dipped his head onto my shoulder, I felt a bubbling fountain of relief washing over me. My sweet boy was still in there. He had a lot of work to do—including some apologies, particularly to Sam. But that could come later.
For now, he was here.
After several minutes, he lifted his head. “Is Sam okay?”
“Yeah. He really cares about you.”
“I… I tried to hurt him.”
“I know.”
“I never wanted to hurt him.”
“I know that too.” I hesitated, then said, “He’s upstairs, if you want to talk to him.”
“No.” The word was so quick out of his mouth I was worried I’d stepped too far. Then he rubbed his fist over his forehead. “I just want to go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow though.”
There was a moment of silence where I got the sense he wanted to say something.
“What is it, Tommy?”
A beat passed. “It’s okay,” he said. “If you want to like, be with him, or whatever.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “With—”
“With Sam.”
“That doesn’t matter now, Tommy.”
“I’m just saying. He’s nothing like that asshole.”
“Ron?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” I said quietly. “He really isn’t. But—”
“I saw that picture of my dad on your laptop,” he blurted out.
It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. How it was connected to what he’d just said.
Then it hit me. The laptop I kept upstairs in the kitchen—I used it to play music from and check email and social media.
I let Tommy use it too, there was nothing private on it.
Except that’s where I’d seen the photo of Tommy’s dad the other day.
I must have closed the laptop without leaving the page it was on.
“I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“I don’t care. I just… I drew a picture of it at school and someone saw it. They started laughing and shit. Passing it around.”
“What?”
“I—” he thudded his head against the wall. “Because I drew myself in it.”
Now my heart dropped like a boulder. I remembered now, the drawing I’d seen sticking out of his bag. “Oh Tommy. I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I did it. I don’t want to be part of their family. I just wish… I just wish I had a dad who wanted me. Like Henry.”
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I must have lost my mind, because the thought that came up, that I wanted so desperately to share with him, was maybe Sam could be your dad too.
As much as the idea felt beautiful, it was like a shiny, too-good-to-be-true ideal.
Which only underscored why the decision I’d made earlier about Sam mattered.
It emphasized that whatever happened between Sam and I, if anything happened, we’d need to keep it only between us.
Because I refused to set Tommy up for any more heartbreak. Not now. Not ever.
All I could do was wrap my arms around my giant little boy and hold him tight, reminding him he was so wanted. Over and over and over again as he tried and failed not to cry.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Long enough that I was in pain by the time I got up. But I didn’t care. I felt like we’d finally gotten somewhere.
Tommy promised he would apologize to Sam in the morning; he said he wanted to think about how to do it. Then he said goodnight and we hugged one more time.
Half an hour later, when I went out to check on Henry, Tommy’s surprisingly robust snores were sounding through his door.
When I knew both my boys were safe and sleeping, finally, I slept.