On the ride up, Leila tried to tell herself that the amount of time alone she spent visiting Eli was enough to make Howard mistakenly think she was his girlfriend. It was his other comment that was making it hard to think. It’s obvious he adores you. Was it really?
The elevator chimed and opened onto Eli’s floor. She tried to dig back up her fury, but was surprised by how difficult that suddenly seemed. Leila’s steps were muffled as she walked down the hall. Her mind was in a similar state. Twice in one day she had been mistaken for Eli’s girlfriend. It was a dangerous thing for her to let herself believe there was any meaning in the two. She couldn’t let her deepest fantasies break free without serious consequences. Leila wasn’t sure she was ready for the crushing disappointment she feared would follow.
The sound of her own hand rapping on Eli’s door startled her. She stepped back, not at all sure she wanted to confront him right then. Before she could reconsider, the door swung open to reveal a frenzied looking Eli. He all but yanked her into the apartment and shut the door. He didn’t even wait until they cleared the entryway before attacking.
“What happened at Mount Rose today?”
Mount Rose. The name of the hospital snapped some sense back into Leila. Anger was quick to follow. Having found her backbone once again, Leila stormed away from Eli. She didn’t stop until she reached the suede couch, but she didn’t sit.
“Why are you so suddenly hot to talk about it?” she demanded. “You were perfectly happy to let it lie through dinner.”
“What? I had no idea what you were so mad about until we were ready to leave!” Eli exclaimed. “I couldn’t figure out what I had done between leaving you at my apartment and meeting you for dinner. Not until I remembered the papers, anyway. I figured something must have happened there today to make you upset.”
Leila didn’t want to believe him, but his obvious distress made that very hard.
“What happened today?” Eli asked again, this time with a softer voice.
His calm tone instantly irritated her. He wasn’t going to fix this one with a soothing voice and distraction. “I met your mother,” Leila snapped. “That’s what happened today.”
It seemed like confirmation when Eli’s face drained of color. He took a step back, hit the arm of his leather wingback chair and nearly toppled over. It took all his concentration to lower himself into the chair. “You met my mother?”
“Yes, and I spent a good half hour talking with her.”
Eli’s whole body crumpled in on itself. “How?” he begged. “How did that happen?”
“Dr. Evans came out to get the paperwork and asked if I wanted to talk to her,” Leila said. “You act like she’s some big secret—although I guess the fact that you dumped her off in a mental hospital makes that more understandable. You won’t tell me anything about her, so I said I would like to talk to her.”
“Why would he do that?” Eli exploded. “I gave him very specific instructions! You could have been a courier, a total stranger. What was he thinking letting someone he didn’t even know speak with my mother?”
His honest to goodness yelling was a total shock to Leila. She had never even seen Eli raise his voice before! It scared her, made her worry that she had stepped over a line with Eli that couldn’t be re-crossed. Finding out about his mother wasn’t worth that. When she answered, her voice was shaking.
“He thought … we talked for a few minutes. I told him we were friends … and I guess he assumed that if you trusted me to drop off the paperwork, I already knew about your mom. He thought I was … um, your girlfriend, and well, he asked if I wanted to visit with your mom for a few minutes. He said it would make her really happy.”
Eli’s anger wavered. “He thought you were my girlfriend?”
She nodded, feeling very stupid in that moment. Why had she even brought it up?
“And you didn’t correct him?” Eli pressed.
Leila could feel her cheeks turning red. “No. I mean, there didn’t seem to be any point. And I didn’t know if he’d let me meet your mom if I told him the truth.” Her head dipped down shamefully at that last part.
“He had no right to disregard my instructions,” Eli said, his anger returned.
Leila’s anger made a reappearance as well. “What were your instructions, exactly? Keep her locked up and don’t let anyone see her? Are you ashamed of her? Does it hurt your image to have a crazy mother? Is that why you abandoned her there and refuse to see her?”
Leila was trembling by the time she finished her rant. How could he do that to her? What kind of person had she spent the last five months with? Eli had been everything she wanted until earlier that day. Why did he have to go and ruin her fantasy by being an ungrateful, prideful prick! It was almost worse than abandoning his mother to be so utterly disappointed by him. She wanted to cry, the ache was so profound. He was supposed to be better than that! Leila’s legs buckled and she fell to the couch along with her tears.
“What did my mother say to you?” Eli asked in a voice that was almost a whisper.
Swiping away tears, Leila said, “All she talked about was you. What a good boy you were, how much she loved you. She told me about your dog, Polly, and your bird. I don’t know how many times she said you used to take care of her. The soup. The clothes pins. You were all she could think about, and all she wanted was for you to come and see her, Eli. I broke my heart when Dr. Evans told her that she had a visitor, and the visitor wasn’t you. You haven’t seen her once since she was put in there, have you?”
Eli looked up at her, meeting her gaze with hollow, haunted eyes. “No, I haven’t.”
It was worse, so much worse hearing it from his own lips. What explanation could he possibly give that would explain treating his own mother so horribly? In her heart, Leila knew there wasn’t one. She couldn’t bear the thought of listening to lies, so she stood. Her feet propelled her across the room. She wanted out so badly, and she hated Eli for breaking her trust in him and taking away a place she loved. Leila’s fingers touched the door knob, but before she could twist she was yanked away from the door and crushed against Eli’s chest.
“Leila, please don’t go,” he begged. “Please don’t leave me like this. Please.”
She fought against him, crying and pushing his arms away. “Let go of me!”
“No! I won’t let go, not ever. Please, Leila, please.”
The agony in his voice, the emotional hurricane she had been subjected to, the physical exhaustion of such a horrible day … it was too much. Leila sagged against the door and sobbed. “Why would you do that to your own mother, Eli?”
Eli pressed against her, wrapping her up in his arms completely. “I had no choice,” he said.
Even though Leila knew she probably shouldn’t, she believed him enough to let him try and explain. But not without a warning. “Eli, if I don’t believe you completely … this isn’t something I can just forget. Or forgive.”
“Please, just let me explain. I wouldn’t ask you to if I didn’t feel sure you would understand. Please, Leila, you can trust me.”
Leila looked up at him. “Can I?”
Eli looked as if she had just slapped him. “Of course you can. I would never lie to you.”
It seemed like such a boldly honest statement that Leila gave in. Eli felt her response and gently led her back to the couch. When they sat down, he didn’t release her. In fact, he clung to her more tightly with both of his hands encircling one of hers. Eli took a deep breath, but he didn’t start where she expected him to.
“My dad died when I was seven. It was a very unexpected heart attack. I loved my dad very much, and I took his death hard, but so did my mom. I turned to books and locked myself away for as much time as I could. I read every book in my dad’s library,” he said with a sad smile. Then his expression darkened. “My mom handled his death in her own way.”
One of Eli’s hands slipped away from Leila. He scrubbed at his fac
e as if trying to wash away difficult memories. It could never be that simple, though. Eventually he calmed himself and continued. “I was too young to realize what she was doing at the time. I thought she was keeping me close because she loved me.”
“Eli, she did love you. She still does.”
Eli scoffed. “In her own way, I guess.”
The bitterness in his voice drew Leila closer to him. “Eli, what happened?”
“The whole time I was growing up after my dad died, she did everything she could to keep me secluded. Polly was a bribe to keep me from playing with the other neighborhood children,” Eli said.
“But she said Polly was your best friend. Polly loved you.”
Eli nodded slowly. “I loved Polly, too, but she wasn’t just my best friend. She was my only friend. Mom made sure of that. And it only got worse as I grew older.”
Her first instinct was to argue with him. Becoming a bit overprotective of her son after losing a husband wasn’t such an unbelievable thing. What mother wouldn’t be afraid of losing her only other family? It was remembering Mrs. Walsh’s comment about Eli making friends and the girls being the worst of them, and how bitter she had sounded when she said it that made Leila hold her tongue.
“When I started junior high, her behavior started to change. It wasn’t enough that I was always home for dinner and went to church with her on Sunday. Making curfew and running errands for her was the least I could do,” Eli said. “Any time I asked to go out with friends she had a reason that she needed me at home. But I loved her, so I did as she asked. I told myself she was lonely without Dad and it was my responsibility to take care of her. So I did. I took care of her.”
Eli shook her head and leaned forward. Once again, he let go of Leila with one hand. His elbow went to his knee and he propped up his hanging head. Understanding was still out of reach, but Leila responded to his pain with compassion. She switched the hand he was holding for the other and draped her now free arm around his shoulders. He leaned into her embrace.
“I thought I could keep going without complaint during high school, but it got harder. There were sports I wanted to play, parties I wanted to go to, girls I wanted to date. It got harder to always be at home missing out on everything.”
Something seemed to give Eli strength. He came up off his elbows, and instead of being comforted by Leila, he pulled her under his arm. Leila’s head fell against his shoulder as if it were perfectly natural to do so. She let him hold her, and waited for him to continue.
“At the start of my junior year I tried out for the high school varsity soccer team. The coach said I was good and offered me a spot as a forward. When I told my mom, for some reason I thought she would be proud, but instead she got angry at me. I couldn’t take it anymore after that.” Eli’s arm tightened around her at his admission.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I played soccer,” he said. It was such a simple statement, but Eli’s body reacted to every word, drawing in on itself. He was crushing her against his body. “I dated, too, and went out with friends. I wasn’t home every night for dinner. I had a life for the first time, and I was … happy.”
But he didn’t sound happy when he uttered the word. His voice was laced with sadness and regret, overlaid with a fury so deep Leila knew she could never truly understand it. “Eli,” she whispered, “what happened after that?”
“Mom got sick.”
Leila sat up, even more confused than she was before. She could understand Eli was drowning in guilt for rebelling, but even though there was some guilt in his voice, the more consuming emotion was anger. That didn’t make any sense to her.
“Eli, I’m lost. Your mom getting sick couldn’t have been your fault …”
“No, it wasn’t,” he interrupted, his voice sharp.
Okay …. “You’re angry she got sick?” she asked in disbelief. “You of all people should understand that you can’t blame people for having a mental illness.”
“I’m not talking about her psychological problems. I was referring to a physical illness.” Saying that only made him angrier. Leila had no idea what was going on in his head. Thankfully, Eli tried to explain. “It started with her feeling tired all the time. Then she started throwing up every day. Headaches, weight loss, confusion at times. She could barely even get out of bed some days.”
“What did you do?” Leila asked, fearing his answer thanks to not be able to understand his logic.
Eli looked at her like she had just asked an incredibly stupid question. “I took care of her,” he said. “I quit playing soccer, pretty much abandoned any kind of social life. I gave up a full ride scholarship to Harvard for my undergraduate degree so I could stay here and take care of her. She became my entire life.”
The first two fingers of Leila’s hands pressed against her temples and started rubbing. He hated her for getting sick, but he gave up pretty much everything to stay close by and take care of her? She really hoped he would start making sense soon. It had already been a very long, very draining day.
“What changed?” she asked. “You went from doing everything for her, it sounds like, to dropping her off at Mount Rose and never seeing her again. How could you go from one extreme to the other?”
Eli stood abruptly and began pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. His arms folded, then unfolded. His fingers ran through his hair as he struggled to find the words he wanted. All Leila could do was sit on the couch and watch him pace. Her head was throbbing, and his back and forth motion was bordering on irritating, but she waited as patiently as she could.
Without stopping his incessant pacing, Eli said, “None of the doctors we saw could figure out was wrong with her. She would be near death, then suddenly recover to almost full strength. Around the time I was graduating with my bachelor’s degree she started doing a lot better. I started to hope that she was going to be okay. I brought up medical school, and where I wanted to go. That was when things got bad again.”
“Where did you want to go?” Leila asked.
“The West Coast,” Eli said without hesitation. He shook his head and folded his arms again. “I needed a break. Six years of taking care of her, every single day. I was about to reach my breaking point. I couldn’t do it anymore. Not while trying to get through medical school.”
“You said she got sick again after that?” Was it something to do with stress? Leila knew she always got caught some nasty bug when she was really stressed out.
Eli seemed to have a different opinion. “It seemed odd to me that she would relapse right then. I talked to Vance about it, and as we talked I realized something I hadn’t before. There was a pattern. Every time I tried to pull away from her she got worse. As long as I was glued to her side she did better.”
“That could be a lot of things,” Leila said.
“It was suspicious.”
Anger started building around Eli again, and this time Leila really started to worry. Not about Eli blowing up, but that he really did have a reason for abandoning his mother. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.
“I started checking her room, the bathroom, the kitchen. I paid closer attention to everything she did. I came home unexpectedly, anything to figure out what was really going on.”
“And did you?” she asked quietly.
Eli’s chest began to rise and fall more quickly. Red crept into his face. His hands balled up so tight his knuckles turned a snowy white. “Yes, I did.”
He looked ready to explode. Leila had felt so betrayed, so hurt that Eli would do something so unforgivable as abandoning his unwell mother only a few hours earlier. Now, she realized her mistake. Eli was the one who had been hurt. Whatever his mother had done, it had broken her son’s heart. Tears welled in Leila’s eyes and she left the couch and approached Eli. She worried he would be angry at her for treating him so badly, but as soon as she was within reach, he swallowed her up entirely.
; For a long time they held each other without speaking. Leila ached for her friend and whatever pain had been inflicted upon him. She wasn’t sure if the moisture on her cheeks belonged to her or Eli, but she didn’t pull away to find out.
After some time, Eli spoke again. “I came home one day and found her lying on the kitchen floor. I thought she was dead, but once I got my panic under control I found a pulse and called for an ambulance. When I stood up to answer the door I realized my pant leg was wet. It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed the smell of cleaners. I saw the bottle of floor cleaner lying on its side next to her. I smelled her breath and realized she had been drinking it.”
Shocked, Leila pulled away from him. “She tried to kill herself?”
Eli shook his head slowly. “No, that’s what she had been doing all along. There was no mystery illness. She was poisoning herself with whatever she could find, keeping herself sick enough that I would stay with her. She knew I would never leave her if she was ill. So she made sure she was always sick, and I stayed, just like she wanted.”
A weak, sickening feeling came over Leila. She felt her legs becoming unstable. Eli must have as well, because he guided her back to the couch and sat her down. He followed suit, putting an arm around her shoulders to steady her.
“Why would she do something like that?” Leila asked.
Eli sighed. “I don’t know if my dad dying caused something to snap with her, or if she was always like this, but she couldn’t handle the idea of being alone. She couldn’t even stand someone else competing for my attention. Not even Polly.”
“She killed Polly?” Leila squeaked.
His nod made her sick. “She admitted later on that she poisoned Polly, and my parrot, because I spent too much time with them.”
“That’s horrible.”
“She was completely unstable by the time I found her that day. She nearly killed herself just to keep me from moving out.”
“But you still would have visited her and included her in your life,” Leila argued. “That’s why I was so upset thinking you had just abandoned her, because that’s not who I believed you were. And you’re not.”
Date Shark Page 24
