42 Elena
Elena
Elena sees Gael rounding the corner onto Front Street, loping the way fourteen-year-olds do.
His camera is tucked under his shirt and out of the drizzle like it’s an appendage.
She is not one to self-reflect, especially when she’s insulted, but she can’t help wondering if she’s been a good mom.
She can’t help but think that she’s done it all wrong, that she should have maybe come back here all those years ago and tried to make it work or at least find someone else who could have been a father figure.
She’s tried so hard, done the best she could to make sure he was always fed and always clothed. But is he happy? Does he love her?
Gael sees her then and offers her a nod like he’s on his way, but he doesn’t hurry. It’s not cool to hurry; she gets it. She wipes the rain off her face.
She’s distracted by an incoming text. She lifts her phone, protecting it with one hand, and sees that the message is from Cal Pierce.
Rehearsal at the house (out of the rain) at 5?
“Hey,” says Gael, who is standing in front of her now.
They begin to walk toward Barbara’s. He clears his throat with obvious intention.
She thinks he’s about to regale her with tales of shutter speed and overexposure—and other photography details she is completely clueless about.
But instead, he says, “I know you think I came here so I could find out who my dad is.”
Elena almost stops dead, but she forces herself to keep her momentum going.
“Mom,” he says. “I’m fourteen and a half. And you’re thirty-two.”
Elena swallows. She doesn’t speak, just lets him get it out.
“I know you were a teenager when you had me. And I know you lived here when you were a teenager. And I know I’m supposed to care.
I guess maybe a part of me is curious, but mostly, I don’t really care.
I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not having a dad, honestly.
I just always assumed you thought he wasn’t a great guy.
Otherwise, he’d be in our lives. And I was totally okay with that. I am okay with that.”
Elena has to take several deep breaths. She feels like she should speak, that she should apologize, but he doesn’t sound like he needs it.
“Want to know why I really came this week?” He asks her this in full stride, without looking at her.
“Yes,” she manages.
“I wanted to see your hometown. I’ve been dying to come ever since you told me about it.
And then you said you were going back for the first time in however long I’ve been alive, and you weren’t going to bring me with you?
Hell no. I was not going to let you come without me.
And now that I’m here, I’m just—it’s awesome.
Your friends are cool, the locals are cool.
The mountains are insane. It’s been fun to hear stories about what you were like as a kid, to see the school where you used to go, to look at old pictures. ”
She looks at him sharply, and he laughs. “Barbara showed me.” He lowers his voice. “She also told me lots of stuff about your friend Quinn. She seemed like a cool person.”
Elena is struck by the sheer maturity of this boy walking next to her. Where did he come from? She bites her lip to keep the tears at bay because, goddammit, she will not cry. She will not.
“Okay, last thing,” he says, pulling at her arm to stop her.
They’re at the end of Barbara’s street now, standing beneath the streetlight where she saw the figure on their first night here, where they saw the photo of the man watching them.
It sends a chill through her. It’s daytime now, but she thinks of that first night, how she thought she had to protect Gael, and here he is, showing her that he didn’t need her to.
But Sophie is wrong. Elena has had almost no bearing on who he is at his core.
Because Elena is certain that, however emotionally intelligent he is, that’s just who he is.
No matter what she did, he would always be that person.
She looks into his eyes, as deeply as she can, hoping to send him a message this way.
“I’m so proud,” she wants to say. “And I’m so sorry for the way our lives have been. ”
Before she can say anything, he clears his throat.
“Promise me you’ll keep up with the acting,” he says.
“That you won’t find some excuse to give up.
Because I know you can do it. I know that one day, you will be rich and famous, and we will move out of our apartment and into a mansion with a butler, and we will buy a house here too, and maybe one in Maui.
And Joey and Sophie and Barbara can come stay with us whenever they want. ”
She laughs, but in truth, Gael’s words have filled her.
Elena thinks of Cal’s message. She thinks of her role as Teacher Number Two.
Beneath the cold of the rain, she thinks she can feel the tingle of it beneath her skin.
It’s so cheesy, so horribly cliché, but Gael saying these things to her makes it feel true: This is her big break. In more ways than one.
She is not going to fuck this up.