Stay(30)

“Shake it off…” My expression is not pleased. “That’s a Taylor Swift song?” He nods, looking down. “I like your mom, but next time, if the big boys are mean to you, start humming ‘Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.’”

He raises his eyebrows and smiles. I hold up a hand, and we high five. Still, his little face is tense.

I give him a nudge. “What else?”

“What about dads?”

My throat tightens, but I remind myself The Dick is his father. I can’t say what I really think about the guy. I have to practice restraint. “What about dads?”

“Oh…” He looks out the window again. “I don’t know.”

I’m pretty sure I do. Leaning back in my seat, I think aloud. “My dad wanted me to be on the rowing team, the lacrosse team, the football team… I wanted to read books and study biology.”

I’ve got his rapt attention now. “What happened?”

“I read books and studied biology… And I was on the rowing team.” His little brow lowers, and he nods as if he understands some deep wisdom. I can’t help thinking he probably does. “You have to respect your father. But you can talk to me about it if you want. If you trust me.”

His head tilts to the side, and he studies me a second. “Okay.”

“I’ll do my best to deserve your trust.” We’re at my townhome, getting out of the car, and I lift his blue bag. “What’s in the backpack?”

He pulls it around and unzips it, showing me a medium-sized textbook with different ecosystems on the cover, a notebook, and a stuffed orca that looks pretty worn. “I have some science work. I’m starting the unit on sea mammals.”

“That’s a fun one.”

“Mom lets me watch The Blue Planet on Netflix. They do a bunch of stuff with ocean animals and stuff. Do you watch that show?”

“I don’t.” The driver hands me my stack of dry cleaning. “You’ll have to show it to me.”

“Okay!” He shouts, skipping up the steps to my front door. “The guy who talks has this accent because he’s from England. Mom says it makes her sleepy. My medicine makes me sleepy.”

“Can I see your medicine?”

“Sure.” He unzips the front pocket of his backpack and hands me a prescription bottle. I slip it in the pocket of my coat. “You take this when?”

“Before dinner.” He’s stuffing the books and the orca in the pack.

“Who’s the whale?” I point to the black and white animal.

“This is Kona. He’s not really a whale. Killer whales are dolphins.”

“I’ve heard that.” I unlock the door and let him enter before me.

“You know how they call dolphins the dogs of the sea?” He marches into my townhouse chatting up a storm. “Orcas are the wolves of the sea because they hunt in packs. But they don’t attack humans. They only eat seals and stuff. This one time, an orca ate a moose that was swimming in the water… Mom made a joke about Bullwinkle and Rocky. It made me laugh so much…”

He’s so animated telling me his story, I hate to interrupt him. “Head up to the second floor. I’ll take these to my room and meet you there.”

Eli charges ahead of me, and I carry the suits to my closet up top. When I get back down, he’s already in the nautical room, looking at the giant ship in a bottle on the bookcase. His little lips are parted, and rapture is in his eyes.

I take it down and we sit on the bed so he can see it up close. “What do you think?”

“Wow…” he whispers, touching the glass carefully. He reads the words printed on the red band across the side. “Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

“It crashed off the coast of North Carolina.”

Eli traces a small finger along the line of the mast. “It has black sails.”

“The whole ship was black.”

“Who was the captain?”

“Blackbeard.”

His little mouth falls open, and he looks up at me with the roundest eyes. It causes a strange, tight feeling in my stomach. I stand and pick up another, smaller bottle.

“This is the CSS Alabama. It was a Confederate Sloop of war built in Liverpool, England.”

“Wow…” It’s the exact same inflection as the first time. He holds the smaller bottle, inspecting the brown ship with twelve white sails. “It was captured by pirates?”

“Not exactly, but the New York Herald once called Captain Raphael Semmes a pirate of the high seas. At his peak, he burned one Union ship every three days until they finally sunk him off the coast of Normandy.”

He steps over to a picture of me in uniform. “Is this you? You’re on a ship.”

“Yeah.” I put the bottle holding Queen Anne’s Revenge on its perch.

“You were in the military?”

“The Navy.”

Eli looks up at me. “Is that why you know so much about ships?”

“No, I already knew all that from when I was about your age.” He nods, and my voice gets quieter. “My mom wanted me to be in the Navy.”

“Oh.” He nods slowly like that explains everything.

I guess at seven, what your mom wants pretty much explains your life. I stand, walking to the door. “How do you like this room?”