Chapter 5: What Eli Carried
Eli was still in the dining room.
He'd sat down at some point — in the chair farthest from where Richard had been standing, the one near the window.
He had his phone in his hands but he wasn't looking at it.
He was looking at the table.
He looked up when I came in.
"I'm sorry," he said immediately.
"I didn't mean to — I didn't think it would go like this."
"How did you think it would go?"
He almost smiled.
Not quite.
"I had about twelve different versions.
None of them were right."
I sat down across from him.
"Tell me about your mother."
Something shifted in his face.
The careful composure he'd been holding since he arrived — it didn't break, but it softened.
"She was a nurse.
Worked nights mostly, when I was little, so she could be home when I got out of school.
She was — she was really funny, actually.
People don't expect that.
They see a quiet person and think serious, but she had this dry sense of humor.
She could make me laugh harder than anyone."
"When did she get sick?"
"Two years ago.
She didn't tell me at first.
By the time I found out it had already spread." He turned his phone over in his hands.
"She d*ed in February.
I found the letters in April, when I was clearing out her flat."
"Did she ever talk about him?
About Richard?"
"Not really.
She told me his name when I was about twelve.
Said he knew I existed but that he had his own family and it was complicated.
She never said it with bitterness.
That's the thing I keep thinking about.
She was never bitter about it.
She just — accepted it, I suppose."
"She shouldn't have had to."
"No," he agreed quietly.
"She shouldn't have."
I looked at him.
The eyeliner, the tattoos, the black-painted nails.
Up close, none of it seemed like armor anymore.
It seemed like decoration.
Underneath it he was just a young man sitting in a stranger's house, trying to find one piece of solid ground.
"How long have you been in this city?" I asked.
"Three days.
I've been staying at a hostel."
"You came alone."
"Yes."
"Do you have anyone?
Friends, other family?"
"Friends, yes.
My mum's sister, but we're not close.
She moved to Australia years ago." He paused.
"I'm not — I'm not asking for anything.
I want to be clear about that.
I'm not here for money or to make trouble for your family.
I just needed to see him.
To know if he was a real person or just a name on an envelope."
"And now that you've seen him?"
He thought about that for a moment.
"He's real," Eli said.
"I'm not sure yet if that's better or worse."
Caitlin came in from the hallway and sat down beside me without asking.
She looked at Eli for a long moment.
"I'm Caitlin," she said.
"I know.
She mentioned you." He caught himself.
"My mum.
She knew about you.
She said your dad had a daughter.
She said she hoped you were happy."
Caitlin's chin moved.
She pressed her lips together.
"She sounds like she was a good person," Caitlin said.
"The best I've ever known."
The three of us sat there in the quiet for a moment.
From down the hall came no sound at all.
Richard had not followed me out of the study.
Then Caitlin said, "You're not staying in a hostel tonight."
Eli looked at her.
"You're not," she said again, more firmly.
"We have a spare room."
"Caitlin—" I started.
"Mum." She looked at me.
Her eyes were red but her voice was steady.
"He came here alone.
His mum just d*ed.
And whatever Dad did or didn't do — that's not his fault."
I looked at my daughter.
Eighteen years old.
And in that moment, more certain of what was right than anyone else in the house.
"The spare room's at the end of the hall," I said to Eli.
"There are clean towels in the cabinet."
He looked like he might say something.
May you like
He didn't.
He just nodded once, and looked down at the table, and I saw his shoulders drop — just slightly — as if he'd been holding himself rigid for three days and had finally, in this stranger's dining room, allowed himself to breathe.
