All the Little Lights(117)

Kay’s fork scraped against her plate. “You act as if you can’t come back to visit her. You’re coming back to visit, aren’t you?”

“It’s not about that,” Elliott snapped. He still watched me, waiting for an answer.

“Is this about me coming with you?” I asked, my voice small.

“I can’t leave you here alone.”

Kay’s fork clanged against her plate at the same time that her palm slapped the table. “I knew it. My God, son, she’s not helpless.”

“Kay,” John chided.

Elliott’s mother pointed at me. “You’re not going to keep him from going to college and rob him of this opportunity.”

I was taken aback by her sudden vitriol. Kay had never pretended to like me, but she’d also never been so directly hostile.

“He should go. I want him to go.”

Kay nodded once, settling back into her chair. “Then maybe he can get out of the mess you’ve put him in.”

“Mom, enough!” Elliott growled.

Leigh snarled, disgusted. “This was supposed to be a celebratory moment. You can’t think about someone else for two seconds. Not even your own son.”

Kay’s eyes widened. “This is my fault? I wanted him to move back to Yukon with me. If he’d been there, he wouldn’t be under investigation right now, would he?”

“He didn’t want to live in Yukon, Kay!”

“Maybe he would have if you had been on my side! He stayed here, just like you wanted, and now look! He could go to prison! I told you this town was trouble!”

“You’re really going to blame me? For giving him a home? For taking care of him when you wouldn’t get out of bed?”

“How dare you! I was depressed! I couldn’t help it!” Kay wailed.

“He might as well be mine, Kay. That’s how much I love him!”

“He’s not yours!” Kay said, standing. She pressed her palms against the table. “He’s my son! Not yours!”

Elliott stood and calmly walked to the kitchen. A drawer squeaked when he pulled it open, and then he returned, holding a long, rectangular box. We watched him unroll the foil and tear a piece off. He covered my plate, and then he did the same for his. He stacked them, holding them in his hand along with our forks, and then waited for me.

“Elliott,” Leigh pleaded. “I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll eat downstairs.” He gestured for me to follow, and I did, hearing Kay snipe at Leigh again as we reached the stairs. Elliott shut the door behind us, and then we walked down the stairs and to his bed, sitting on it with our plates. Elliott’s fork scraped the ceramic, and he filled his mouth with casserole, staring at the floor. Leigh’s and Kay’s muffled arguing filtered down the stairs. The sound gave me a strange sense of familiarity.

“You’re smiling,” Elliott said.

“Oh.” I swallowed the bite of food in my mouth before I spoke again. “It just reminded me of when my parents would fight. I haven’t heard that in a long time.”

He listened for a bit, and then the corners of his mouth turned up. “It does sound a little like the first night we talked.”

I nodded, taking another bite. Even as Leigh’s and Kay’s voices went up an octave and the fighting escalated, the air in the basement felt lighter. I pretended it was my parents: all shouting and no listening.

Black-and-white photos of me, Elliott and me, a swing at Beatle Park, and the field we use to explore when we first met hung from a string that began in the corner of his room and stopped at a faded green hutch pushed against the center of the back wall. More photos of me and us were in frames at his bedside and taped to the wall in collages.

“Lots of me and not much else.”

He shrugged. “They say you photograph what you love the most.”

I picked up his camera, pointed it at him, and snapped a picture. He beamed.

“Do you miss your dad?” I asked, looking through the photos on the digital display.

“He calls once in a while. Probably when he can’t stand feeling like a no-good piece of crap another day. Do you? Miss yours?”

“Every second,” I said, sighing. I stared at the floor. “And I meant what I said. I want you to go to Baylor.”

“I meant what I said about not leaving you here alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“You know what I mean.”

I put his camera back on the table. “You realize I was alone at the Juniper for two years before you showed up again.”

He sighed, frustrated. “You’re already living with Mrs. Mason.”

“Just until you graduate and move.”

All emotion left his face. “So that’s it? You’re just buying time for me so I can go to college? Then you’re going back there?”

“You’re speaking in question marks again.”

“Yeah, I do that when I’m upset. You have zero concern for your own safety. How am I supposed to leave knowing that?”

“You’re such a hypocrite,” I snapped.

He touched his chest. “I’m a hypocrite?”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t put myself in what you perceive to be danger for you, when you’re talking about throwing away your college career for me.”