by Gail Dayton
"Say 'em. Say 'em all. I've probably thought 'em already." Eli slumped down in his seat.
"You're really Pete's father?"
"Wild, isn't it? I had the tests done a couple years ago, when DNA testing started getting big, so I could be sure I'd have some say in what happens to Pete. You know, if Tee had trouble or something like that. I half expected 'em to come back negative, maybe more than half. But they didn't."
Now that he'd started talking, he couldn't seem to stop. "If he can sleep on the floor tonight, I'll get started finding a place for us to stay in the morning."
Marilyn bit her lip, thinking. She didn't like that idea.
Eli obviously saw it, because he started backpedaling. "Or just drop us at a motel. We'll be fine."
She liked this new idea even less. "Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "Of course you and Pete can stay. I just--I have a house." What was she suggesting?
"Yeah?" He sounded cautious.
"What if I opened it up? It's three bedrooms, two baths. The yard is small, but not any smaller than anything else in Pittsburgh." She didn't like the idea of Eli trying to live with his little boy in a hotel room. It wasn't just the little boy. She wasn't ready to say goodbye to Eli yet. That is, if he wasn't.
"You mean for me and Pete to move into by ourselves? Or would you come too?" Eli said.
"Do you want me to come?"
"Hell, yes. I don't know anything about taking care of kids. You raised one all the way to eighteen. I figure you know something about it. Enough to keep me from screwing up too bad. But don't, if you don't want to."
Her heart sank. "Is that why you want me there? To help with Pete?" She understood that well enough.
Eli turned toward her, twisting in the seatbelt she made him wear. "I want you, Marilyn, plain and simple. Any way I can get you. Anywhere. Any time. I thought you knew that."
"A child changes things. It always does."
"Doesn't change that." Eli grinned at her, obviously trying to wheedle a returning smile. "Just makes it a little complicated to get there."
Marilyn couldn't help giving him the smile he wanted. He could charm money from a miser. "Okay," she said. "We'll all move in."
"None of this separate bedrooms shit, right?"
"If that's what you want." Oh, she hoped it was.
"Oh, yeah, babe. That's what I want."
She took a deep breath, slow and silent so he wouldn't notice, relieved that it was settled, for now anyway. Then her smile turned wicked. "You realize my family will probably throw sixteen kinds of hissy fit about this. I mean, they've been after me to move back into my house, but not with company."
"So, why are you smiling?" Eli asked warily.
"I wish I could see their faces when they find out you're moving in too." She chuckled. "I'm tempted to call and invite them over for dinner."
"Think they'd come?"
"Who knows?"
Silence fell in the car again. A more comfortable silence than before.
"Why didn't you tell me Pete was your son?" Marilyn asked after several miles. She knew Eli had secrets. This one shouldn't hurt her feelings any more than the others, but it did. "Why didn't you want me to know? Did you think I'd change my mind about you?"
"No, nothing like that. I don't--" Eli hunched his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. "Nobody knows. Or almost nobody. Pete doesn't even know. Fitz does, because he wouldn't keep him until I told him. I had to write out one of those medical permission slips so he could take the kid to the doctor if he got a cold or something. Teresa knew. Nobody else. Except now you."
"Why the big secret?" She could--almost--understand him keeping it a secret from her, but from the boy himself? "Why didn't you want anybody to know?"
He sighed, fingers tap-tapping on his jeans. "A kid should have a father he can look up to. That sure as hell isn't me."
Marilyn frowned. That didn't make any sense. "Why not? Have you been to prison?"
"No. Hell, no. I've never been arrested since I turned seventeen." He paused. "Well, okay, I've been arrested a couple times, but stuff like at the college the other day. Mistakes. They always let me go after a few hours. A couple days at most."
"I find it a little hard to think you're trying to avoid child support."
Eli shook his head. "I sent money every month. Most times straight to the landlord so Tee couldn't spend it on rock."
"So..." It didn't make any sense. "Why?"
"Let's just say I'm not the greatest role model in the world and leave it at that, okay?"
"Okay." But she couldn't of course. It was obvious Eli loved the boy. He made sure Pete could always reach him and kept in frequent touch. He provided emotional and financial support. Obviously the idea of day-to-day responsibility for Pete overwhelmed Eli, but that didn't explain why Eli didn't want Pete to know he was his father.
She finally managed to stuff the questions into a back corner of her mind. Eli was telling him now. Why he'd waited so long didn't matter. A little boy's welfare did. Which reminded her--
"Eli, give me your cell phone."
"You're driving. What's the number?"
"Joey's. It's--"
"I got it." Eli punched the number in quickly. Marilyn decided she was both impressed and surprised. Impressed that he'd have her brother's number programmed in already and surprised that he'd want to.
"Yeah, Joey, it's Eli. Marilyn wants me to give you a message." He looked over at her, eyebrows raised, waiting.
"Give me the phone." She held her hand out for it and Eli held it just out of reach.
"You drive. I'll talk."
She gritted her teeth at him but gave in. He was undoubtedly right. "Okay, tell him I need him to go over to my house and turn on the heat and the water."
Eli relayed the message, then elaborated. "Yeah, we're moving in, Marilyn and me and my kid."
"You don't need to tell him all that," she protested.
"Joey's on our side. Why not tell him?"
She huffed out a breath. "Ask if he still has the key I gave him." When she got an affirmative, she went on with her detailed instructions, wondering how this move would turn out. It felt big, important, but was it?
After listening to Joey repeat the instructions, Eli hung up. "Are you planning to go back there tonight?"
"What do you think? It's clean. A little dusty maybe, but Pete will have his own room and a bed. There's enough kitchen stuff still there to do breakfast."
"I guess it depends on what time we get back. If it's not too late, we can try it."
Marilyn nodded, feeling even more nervous about the whole thing.
They reached the hospital in Erie well after dark and found a place to park not too terribly far from the emergency room door. Even with his crutch and broken leg, Eli rushed ahead of Marilyn, swinging along with a speed that left her breathless and far behind.
She caught up with him at the waiting room entrance where he'd stopped to scan the room. Marilyn looked too, hunting for a little boy looking alone and scared.
That one, maybe? Thin-faced and dark-haired like Teresa, small for a five-year-old. But no, his mother was calling him back to her side.
"Eli!"
Marilyn's attention snapped to the child's voice calling out Eli's name. No.
That couldn't be him. He was too old. Much too old. Eight or nine, maybe ten, skinny arms inside a too-big T-shirt, pale brown hair the same color as Eli's sticking straight up, faint winter freckles dusting his thin big-eyed face. Too old. Too old. He couldn't be Pete. She couldn't bear it.
"Hey, squirt." Eli staggered slightly as the too-old boy tackled him with a bear hug.
No. That couldn't be Pete. It just couldn't.
Marilyn sank into a chair before her knees gave out.
From the corner of his eye, Eli noticed Marilyn sit down. She looked pale, not right. But with Pete jumping on him, threatening to knock him over, he couldn't take time to be sure she was okay.
The s
ecurity guard by the door was speaking into a phone. Probably calling the social worker or whoever was in charge of stuff like this.
"Eli. Eli--" Pete was pulling on his good arm.
"What, kid?"
"Where's my dad? You said you were bringing him. Is he coming? Where is he? Is he still outside?"
Eli took a deep breath. Crunch time. "He's here, Pete. Your dad's right here."
"Where?" Pete peered around the waiting room, obviously expecting some perfect dad to pop up like a jack-in-the-box.
"Here, Pete. I'm your dad."
The boy stared, a faint smile on his face, waiting for the punch line to the joke. "No, really, Eli. Where is he?"
Eli glanced back at Marilyn. He needed some help here. But she had her head down, face in her hands, like she didn't feel good. No help coming there. "Right here. Me."
The smile faded. "You're fuckin' with me, man."
"Hey!" Eli scowled. "What did I tell you about words like that?"
"You can't tell me nothin'! You're not my father!"
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry as he--heck you feel that way because you're stuck. I'm your father and I'm the only one you got."
Come on, Marilyn. Help! But she hadn't moved.
It wasn't like her, and it worried Eli. He wanted to check on her, see what was wrong, but he had his hands full with Pete.
"If you're my dad, how come you didn't tell me before?"
Yeah, how come? Eli's conscience nagged. All the reasons that had made so much sense over the past nine years now sounded stupid at best, and completely cowardly.
"Look, I'm sorry. I--no excuse, okay? I'm telling you now."
"Well, maybe I don't want you for my dad."
"Well, maybe--" Eli broke off his hot retort. He was the dad here. He was the grown-up, though at the moment, he didn't feel very grown up at all.
"Excuse me, sir?" A woman in a severe blue suit had emerged from the heart of the hospital. She introduced herself as being with Child Services. "Are you this boy's father?"
"Yeah." Eli reached for his wallet, for the papers he carried with him everywhere. "Yes, I am."
He handed them to her. "That's the recognition of paternity there, and that's my ID so you know I'm me."
"You're Eli Court?" The woman looked at him over the reading glasses she'd put on. "The boy's name is Howell."
"His mom and I thought it would be easier if they had the same name."
"You've been providing support for the child Peter Howell?"
"I paid the rent and utilities. Direct, so I'd know it got paid. I sent money for food, sent him clothes."
"You lived out of town?"
"Yeah. Look, I'm his father. I showed you the proof. What's with all the questions?"
Pete started to edge away, maybe hoping to find some other dad stashed in a closet somewhere. Eli snagged him by the back of the T-shirt. "Don't," he said. "Sit. Stick around."
"I was just gonna go watch TV."
"Don't leave the room, got me?"
"Yeah, yeah." Pete sulked a few rows over and collapsed in a chair next to the little kid driving his mom nuts with his acrobatics.
The woman frowned at Eli, obviously not impressed by the display of fatherly care. "Where's the boy's mother?"
Eli lowered his voice, though he was pretty sure Pete couldn't hear him, over by the TV. "She's dead. That's why Pete was up here. We didn't think he needed to be around while she was dying." The small lie came easily to Eli's lips. "I don't have a death certificate yet, if that's what you want, but you can call the Pittsburgh morgue. They'll tell you."
The woman's scowl intensified. What did she have against him? Besides the leather and earrings. "How do you plan to care for the child?"
"I got a place. A house. In Pittsburgh." Fed up with all the questions, Eli plucked his papers out of the woman's hands. "I want to get back to Pittsburgh tonight. With my son. I want to see my friend before I go. You got a problem with that?"
"Where is this house of yours?" she said, "And yes, I have a problem with turning any child loose into the care of someone who might have been abusing him."
"What?" Eli recoiled. He'd never touched Pete. Not like that. And he could swear Teresa never--
"He's been in the system. Reported by a teacher because of bruises on his body."
Rage flared through Eli and he fought it down. "Pete, come here a sec."
"What?" He didn't budge.
"Come here and I'll tell you."
Sullenly, Pete got up and dragged his feet back toward Eli. "What?"
"Why didn't you tell me Tee was hitting you?"
"She didn't." Pete wilted quickly under Eli's glare. "Not much, anyway. It didn't hurt."
"Then where'd the bruises come from?"
"I said it didn't hurt. I don't--" Pete stopped yelling at the look Eli gave him. "It was only once. She never did it again. Really. She just--she was mad cause I wouldn't give her the money you sent. She'd been out partying and she was mad."
"God, Pete." Eli yanked him into a hug, careful to hold back with the rock-hard cast. "Why didn't you tell me?"
The woman spoke up. "You told the social worker it was your mother's boyfriend who hit you."
"Yeah, it was." Pete spoke from inside the circle of Eli's arm. "Him, too. But mostly it was Tee."
"This isn't your mother's boyfriend?"
"Eli? Fu--uh--heck no. He's just Eli. He's--" Pete looked up at him with a funny look on his face that morphed slowly into a grin. "He's my dad."
Forgiven so easily? Eli hoped so. "Anything else? Can I take my son home now?"
"What home are you taking him to?" The woman wasn't giving up so quickly.
"Yeah, it's--" Eli looked at Marilyn again. She didn't have her head in her hands any more. She was sitting up, staring blankly across the room, not so pale as before but still not quite...right. "Marilyn?"
He turned back to the Child Services woman and Pete. "Give me a second here."
Eli clumped to Marilyn's side and sat down beside her. She didn't look at him, didn't look at anything but whatever she was staring at across the room.
"Marilyn? Hey--" Eli touched her shoulder and she slowly drew her attention from the far wall to him. "You okay?"
She blinked, some animation coming back to her face, and she smiled. A faint, feeble, mockery of a smile. "I'm fine."
"You sure?" She didn't seem fine to Eli.
"Of course." Marilyn blinked again, seeming to become more aware of her surroundings. "Are we ready to go?"
"Not quite yet. Child Services wants to know about the house I'm taking Pete to."
"Oh." She stood up and smiled, this one more real. "Of course."
Marilyn shook hands with the social worker woman, introduced herself and explained about her house, giving the address and briefly describing it and the neighborhood. It sounded like one heck of a house to Eli. Just the kind of place a kid should grow up.
"You're renting it to Mr. Court?" the woman asked.
"No. I'm--" Marilyn looked at Eli, then at Pete, like she didn't remember deciding already, like she wasn't sure what her answer would be. "We'll all be living there together. Eli and I are in a relationship."
"A...?" The woman's eyebrows climbed her forehead.
"He's my boyfriend." Marilyn sounded exasperated. Eli hoped it was with Ms. Child Services and not him.
He was getting fed up with the woman himself. If not for the security guard near the door, he'd have grabbed Pete and left a long time ago. Eli noticed Pete giving Marilyn a good once-over, head to toe to head again. What was the kid thinking?
"Do you have children, Ms. Ballard?" the woman asked.
"Not at home. In college."
Now Ms. Child Services was giving Marilyn the once-over, and then looking over Eli when she was done with that. It annoyed the hell out of Eli, the way people reacted to knowing they were together. So what if he was younger? So what if he was the punk-biker type and she was the suburban-housewife type. If
they didn't care, why should anybody else?
Finally, the woman took a deep breath. "All right, Mr. Court. Take your son home. I'll notify the Pittsburgh office. They can check by in a few weeks and see how things are going."
Eli let go a gust of breath. "Great." He hooked his good arm around Pete's neck, putting him in a playful headlock. "Come on, squirt. Let's go find out if they'll let us see Fitz before we have to go."
Then he noticed, as the social worker vanished through a door, how Pete was still staring at Marilyn. And Marilyn was staring back.
"I guess we can take a minute for formal introductions." Eli leaned on his crutch, getting closer to Pete's eye level. "Pete, this is Marilyn, my lady friend."
"Hi." Pete gave her a shy wave of his fingers.
Eli straightened, took Marilyn's hand in his. "Marilyn--" He paused for a deep breath. "This is my son. Peter Samuel Howell."
Pete frowned. "If you're my dad, doesn't that mean I'm Peter Samuel Court?"
Blood thundered through Eli's brain. Pete wanted to be a Court? "Yeah," he said. "Sure. If that's what you want."
Marilyn smiled and held her hand out to Pete. "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Court."
Pete shook her hand, his grin so big it was about to take over his face. "Call me Pete. Everybody does."
She laughed. At least Eli thought it was supposed to be a laugh. It sounded a little like a ... sob?"
"And how old are you, Pete?"
"I'm nine and one-twelfth. But not exactly, since it's just a little more--" he held up his fingers a tiny space apart to show how little, "--than a month since my birthday."
"Ah." Marilyn's smile flickered and vanished.
Something was definitely wrong, and Eli didn't have a clue what it might be. "Marilyn?" he began.
"So, are we going to visit Fitz or what?" she said brightly, so obvious about changing the subject that Eli didn't dare persist.
Sixteen
***
They had Fitz in a special heart section, but not isolated in the ICU, so Eli was allowed to go in. Pete had to wait outside the floor and Marilyn stayed with him.
Fitz looked as big as ever, stretched out in the hospital bed, but somehow frail at the same time. Like his bones were swallowing up the rest of him. He had tubes in his nose for breathing and wires going every which direction, a vat creature who needed to go back in the vat to finish curing.
