Chapter 7 - Eli Remembered More Than the Adults Expected
Walter dreaded the interview.
Eli treated it like a trip to a boring office.
He brought crayons.
A trained child interviewer spoke with him while Walter waited elsewhere.
Nobody coached him.
Nobody asked Walter what he hoped Eli would say.
Afterward, the social worker could not give Walter every detail.
She gave him enough.
Eli described several incidents involving Cole.
Some were physical.
Some were intimidation.
Cole had made him stand facing the garage wall after accidents.
Had grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise it.
Had slapped the back of his legs.
Had threatened to throw away toys.
But the most damaging detail involved Laurel.
“Eli said his mother sometimes intervened,” the worker explained. “And sometimes didn’t.”
Walter’s hope that Eli had exaggerated the phrase “stood there and watched” disappeared.
“Did she ever hit him?”
“No allegation of that.”
“Did she tell Cole to?”
“Eli did not say that.”
Walter thought of Cole’s accusation.
Who gave me permission.
Cole had taken Laurel’s silence and turned it into consent.
But silence had still protected him.
The social worker asked whether Walter could keep Eli temporarily.
“Yes.”
“Without using access to Eli to punish Laurel?”
Walter bristled.
“I’m protecting him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Walter stopped.
His anger toward his daughter was beginning to feel righteous.
Righteousness could become its own kind of danger.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I can.”
That evening Laurel came for a supervised visit at Walter’s house.
She and Eli built a plastic dinosaur puzzle at the dining table.
At first Eli barely spoke.
Then Laurel placed one piece in the wrong spot.
Eli corrected her.
“You always do that one wrong.”
Laurel smiled.
“I do.”
It was the first ordinary thing Walter had seen between them.
When the visit ended, Eli hugged neither of them.
He simply said, “Bye, Mom.”
Laurel waited until they were outside before crying.
Walter thought the hardest question was whether his daughter had knowingly failed her son.
Now he understood something worse.
May you like
The answer was yes.
The new question was whether she could become someone Eli would ever trust again.
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