Chương 7
He ended the call.
“What does that mean?” Sophie asked.
“Nothing.”
“You said you were going to stop doing that.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“It means some people thought the attention could be useful.”
“For what?”
“The Foundation.”
“With Eli?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say yes?”
“No.”
“Did his mom?”
“No.”
“Did I?”
“No.”
Sophie turned toward the window again.
Richard drove another block.
“I said no.”
She looked back.
“To what?”
“To using either of you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“Good.”
The article appeared before they reached home.
By evening, the story had changed.
The miracle boy became the exploited boy.
The grieving father became the billionaire attempting to manufacture inspiration.
The disabled daughter became evidence.
People argued about Sophie as if she were a public policy question.
Some accused Richard of keeping her in a wheelchair for sympathy.
Others accused Sophie of faking disability because she had stood once.
One stranger wrote that truly disabled people did not “turn it on and off.”
Another said Richard should lose custody.
Someone found the Foundation’s annual reports and decided the entire organization existed to exploit his daughter’s accident.
Someone else created a fundraising page for Eli without Danielle’s permission.
It raised forty-three thousand dollars before she discovered it.
She reported it.
The platform froze the funds.
By then, people were calling her ungrateful.
At school on Monday, Eli lasted until lunch.
A fifth grader asked him to heal his sprained wrist.
Two children bowed when he entered the cafeteria.
Someone had taped a printed picture of him to his locker with the word JESUS underneath.
Eli tore it down.
A teacher told him not to react.
That phrase followed him into the bathroom.
Do not react.
He locked himself in a stall.
When the bell rang, he stayed there.
The school counselor found him seventeen minutes later.
Danielle left work early to pick him up.
That cost her seventy-eight dollars.
She knew because she calculated it before signing him out.
In the car, Eli stared at the glove compartment.
“Did you heal anybody today?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good. I don’t have malpractice insurance.”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
He didn’t.
Her smile disappeared.
“Bad?”
He nodded.
“Want to tell me?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
They drove.
At a red light, Eli said, “I wish I didn’t do it.”
Danielle kept both hands on the wheel.
“That’s allowed.”
“She would still be sitting.”
“She’s still sitting sometimes.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
The light changed.
Danielle drove.
“You can be glad you helped her and hate what happened after.”
Eli looked out the side window.
“Those can both be true?”
“Most annoying things can.”
That night Richard called.
Danielle almost ignored it.
Eli said, “Answer.”
She did.
Richard said, “I heard what happened at school.”
“How?”
“Sophie heard.”
“How?”
Richard paused.
“Children have phones.”
“She doesn’t.”
“Her cousin does.”
Danielle rubbed her forehead.
“What do you need?”
“I want to help.”
“No.”
“Ms. Carter.”
“You helping keeps getting expensive for me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Richard was silent.
Danielle immediately regretted it.
Not because the statement was false.
Because it had become too easy to use him as the nearest available target.
She sat on the edge of the motel bed.
“What do you want to do?”
“I can have our attorney contact the fundraiser platform.”
“I already did.”
“I can contact the school.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Eli has to go there after you stop being interested.”
That shut him up.
She continued.
“You can’t drop your last name on every problem until it behaves.”
Richard said, very quietly, “You think that’s what I do?”
“I think it’s what I’d do if I had your last name.”
He surprised her by laughing.
“Fair.”
Danielle leaned back against the wall.
The motel room smelled faintly of bleach and somebody else’s cigarettes.
Richard said, “Sophie wants to invite Eli to therapy.”
Danielle’s expression tightened.
“Why?”
“She says he makes her less afraid.”
“He is not responsible for making her brave.”
“I agree.”
“Does she?”
“I’m trying to teach her.”
Danielle picked at a loose edge of wallpaper.
“Is it private?”
“Yes.”
“Press?”
“No.”
“Foundation?”
“No.”
“Your communications guy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.”
Richard hesitated.
“There is one condition.”
“Of course.”
“He wears shoes.”
Danielle laughed before she could stop herself.
Across the room, Eli looked up.
Richard said, “I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“I have spent four days being asked why a barefoot child was wandering around my gala.”
“His shoe broke.”
“So I heard.”
“You rich people build whole buildings out of glass and then buy children shoes that fall apart in a kitchen.”
“They were not my shoes.”
“They were from a donation box your Foundation funded.”
Richard went silent.
Danielle smiled.
“I’m kidding.”
“You are a terrible person.”
“Probably.”
It was the first normal conversation either of them had had in days.
Eli went to Sophie’s therapy on Friday.
He wore new sneakers Danielle had bought at a discount store.
He hated them because they squeaked.
Sophie noticed immediately.
“Nice shoes.”
“They’re loud.”
“That’s because they’re clean.”
“Yours are clean.”
“I’m rich.”
Marcy looked between them.
“I’m going to regret allowing this.”
Sophie smiled.
Eli sat on a bench at the edge of the therapy room.
Richard stayed in the waiting room.
Danielle went to a job interview.
For twenty minutes, Eli watched Sophie work.
It was nothing like the ballroom.
No chandeliers.
No silence.
No miracle.
She moved from wheelchair to mat with Marcy beside her.
She practiced shifting weight.
She tried standing between parallel bars.
The first attempt lasted less than a second.
The second ended before her hips left the mat.
The third got her halfway up.
She swore.
Marcy raised an eyebrow.
Sophie looked at Eli.
“My dad says worse.”
“I do not,” Richard called from the waiting room.
Marcy shouted, “You are not supposed to be listening.”
“I’m not.”
Eli smiled.
Sophie tried again.
May you like
This time she stood.
Her hands clamped around the bars.
