Chương 13
Rachel watched a delivery van stop across the street.
“When I was a child,” she said, “my mother sent me to my aunt’s house whenever I became difficult.”
Eli looked at her.
“How long?”
“Sometimes a weekend. Once, almost a month.”
“Why?”
“I told a teacher my mother hit me.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“My aunt told me families could be ruined by children who exaggerated.”
“Were you exaggerating?”
“No.”
“Did you go back?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because children usually go where adults decide.”
Eli looked toward the house.
“You still loved her.”
Rachel considered lying.
“Yes.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Often.”
He picked at a loose thread in his sleeve.
“Do you love Marlene?” Rachel asked.
His shoulders rose.
“I hate her.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
He glanced sideways.
“You do the waiting thing even when you say you won’t.”
“I’m still learning.”
A long silence passed.
Then Eli said, “She made pancakes shaped like states.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“Most looked like Ohio.”
Rachel smiled.
“So yes?”
He scuffed one shoe against the step.
“Sometimes.”
The trial placement began four days later.
Eli arrived with one plastic trash bag of clothes, a backpack from the Thompsons, and the hospital hoodie folded under his arm. Andrea hugged him only after asking. Malik shook his hand and slipped a card into his backpack.
Rachel had prepared herself for gratitude, fear, perhaps defiance.
Eli walked upstairs, put his bag in the guest room, and asked for the Wi-Fi password.
Noah refused to give it to him until Rachel intervened.
By evening, they were arguing over the television remote.
At midnight, Rachel found Eli asleep on the floor beneath the guest-room window with his shoes on and backpack under his head.
She did not move him.
She brought a blanket and left it nearby.
At two, she checked again.
The blanket covered him.
At four, she woke to the sound of a cabinet closing.
Eli stood in the kitchen wearing the hoodie. A jar of peanut butter, bread, and three apples sat on the counter.
He froze when he saw her.
Rachel opened the pantry, took out a reusable grocery bag, and set it beside the food.
“If you’re going to store supplies, use something that won’t tear.”
He stared at her.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
His face closed.
“I’m mad that someone taught you food disappears.”
He looked down.
“You can keep the bag in your room,” she said. “But no knives upstairs. Use a spoon.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s the rule.”
He put the food in the bag.
The next morning, Noah discovered the stash and complained.
By afternoon, he had added two granola bars without telling anyone.
Living with Eli did not heal the family. It made every weakness harder to hide.
He hated closed bedroom doors but shut his own. He refused baths unless the bathroom lock remained engaged. He hoarded batteries, napkins, and unopened condiment packets. He lied about small things even when the truth carried no punishment.
Noah corrected him constantly.
Eli retaliated by moving Noah’s belongings a few inches from their assigned places.
One evening, Noah spent fifteen minutes searching for a mechanical pencil Eli had placed behind his ear.
Another night, Eli unplugged Noah’s alarm clock. Noah missed the bus and accused him of sabotage.
“You wake up before the alarm anyway,” Eli said.
“That is not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that it’s mine.”
Eli’s face changed.
Rachel saw it too late.
He shoved the clock from the dresser. It struck the wall and cracked.
Noah lunged.
The boys hit the floor together, identical faces twisted into different kinds of fury. Noah grabbed Eli’s sleeve. Eli drove an elbow into his chest. Rachel pulled them apart with more force than she intended.
Eli kicked at her.
His heel struck her thigh.
Everyone froze.
Eli’s expression emptied.
He ran.
The front door slammed.
Rachel followed without shoes.
Cold pavement cut into her feet. Eli sprinted toward the corner, fast despite his thinness. Rachel could not catch him. She shouted his name once, then stopped because the panic in her voice made him run harder.
Noah came outside holding Rachel’s phone.
“Location sharing,” he said. “The phone in his backpack.”
They had given Eli a basic smartphone two days earlier. He had complained about the tracking feature but agreed to keep it active during the trial placement.
The map showed him moving toward the neighborhood train station.
Rachel called Priya and Andrea while Noah watched the dot.
“I’m coming,” Noah said.
“No.”
“He may answer me.”
“He just fought you.”
“That’s why.”
Rachel looked at him standing barefoot on the sidewalk in his pajama pants.
“Get shoes.”
They found Eli beneath the train platform stairs. His backpack lay beside him. He had turned off the phone but not before the last location registered.
Noah approached first.
Rachel remained several yards away.
Eli’s sleeve had torn again. The bracelet flashed beneath it.
“You broke my clock,” Noah said.
Eli stared at the tracks.
“You hit me.”
“You grabbed me.”
“You moved my pencil.”
“That was yesterday.”
“You do things every day.”
“So do you.”
A train approached, wind pushing litter along the platform.
Noah sat beside him.
“My mother is scared you’ll leave.”
Eli’s mouth tightened.
“She’s not my mother.”
“Biologically she is.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It counts. It just doesn’t finish the question.”
Rachel recognized Samantha’s influence in the sentence.
Eli looked at him.
Noah rubbed his chest where Eli had struck him.
“I liked being the only one,” he said.
“I know.”
“I still do sometimes.”
“Then go home.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Noah watched the train pass without stopping.
“Because I want to know what my face looks like when it isn’t trying to be me.”
Eli frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
They sat together beneath the stairs.
After several minutes, Eli picked up his backpack.
He walked home between them.
May you like
Marlene’s condition worsened.
The prosecutor approved a supervised hospital visit after Eli’s therapist argued that denying contact could turn Marlene into another unexplained disappearance.
