Chapter 9: Elliot's Question
Elliot was at home with Dr.
Reyes when Warren called.
Irene answered the phone.
"How did it go?"
"We got the order," Warren said.
A pause.
Then, quietly: "Good."
"Is he okay?"
"He's been drawing," Irene said.
"He's been drawing for two hours.
I think that's a good sign."
Warren drove home through afternoon traffic, and when he walked through the front door, Elliot was at the kitchen table with a spread of colored pencils and several sheets of paper.
Dr.
Reyes was seated across from him, not directing — just present.
She caught Warren's eye and gave a small nod.
She gathered her things quietly and let herself out.
Warren sat down at the table.
Elliot pushed one of the drawings toward him without looking up.
It was a picture of two figures — a tall one and a small one — standing in front of a house.
The small one had yellow hair, which was not accurate, but Warren understood.
The tall one had a briefcase.
"That's us," Elliot said.
"Yeah." Warren looked at it.
"It is."
"I drew the door open," Elliot said.
"Because we're going in.
Not coming out."
Warren looked at the door in the drawing.
It was open, and there was yellow light coming from inside.
"I like that," he said.
Elliot picked up a blue pencil and added something to the corner of the page — a small figure, off to the side, with an apron.
"That's Irene," he said.
"She'll be glad to know she made the picture."
Elliot almost smiled.
Not quite — but almost.
He set the pencil down and looked at his father.
"Is Monique coming back?"
"No."
"Ever?"
"No.
The judge said so today."
Elliot absorbed this.
He straightened one of his pencils so it was parallel to the others.
"Dad."
"Yeah."
"Did you know?
Before Irene sent you the video?"
Warren looked at his son.
The question was careful and serious, the way Elliot's questions always were — the way they had become, Warren now understood, because he had learned to be careful.
"No," Warren said.
"I didn't know."
"Why not?"
It was the hardest question.
Warren didn't rush the answer.
"Because she was careful about what I saw," he said.
"And because I trusted her when I shouldn't have.
And because I wasn't paying close enough attention." He paused.
"All of those things are true.
And none of them are your fault."
"I thought you'd be angry at me," Elliot said.
"For not telling you."
"I'm not."
"She said you would be."
"I know.
She was wrong about that too."
Elliot picked up the blue pencil again.
He added a small detail to the drawing — a window on the upper floor of the house.
Then he colored it in, slowly, carefully, pressing hard enough that the color was solid and bright.
"I used to sit at that window," he said.
"When you were coming home from work.
I'd watch for your car."
Warren didn't say anything.
"She told me to stop.
She said it was pathetic." He kept coloring.
"I did it anyway.
I just made sure she couldn't see me."
Warren reached across the table and put his hand over Elliot's.
The boy stopped coloring.
"I'm going to be here," Warren said.
"I know I have to prove that.
I know it's going to take time.
But I'm going to be here."
Elliot looked at their hands.
"Okay," he said.
Not *I believe you.* Not *I know.* Just *okay* — the cautious, provisional okay of a child who had learned that hope was something you held carefully, with both hands, in case it needed to be set down quickly.
Warren understood that.
May you like
He was going to have to earn the rest.
He sat with his son at the kitchen table while the afternoon light moved across the floor, and neither of them spoke for a while, and it was the most peaceful the house had felt in a very long time.
