June 5th, 2009
“Dammit, girl. How could you not tell me?”
Elijah flinched at the fury in his grandpa’s voice. In the twelve years he’d been alive, he’d never heard the elder Elijah raise his voice at his mother. Even when she deserved it. Which was all the time. She badmouthed Elijah’s dad all the time. He was dead and she still couldn’t seem to stop blaming him for everything bad that happened in their lives.
“Because it wasn’t any of your business,” his mother said, her tone cold enough to send an icy trickle of fear along Elijah’s spine. “Eli had no right to tell you. We could get in a lot of trouble.”
“No right? No right? You’re lucky I’m a gentleman or I’d slap the taste out of your mouth. That’s my grandson. That man hurt him.Him, not you. He had the right to shout it from the goddamn rooftops if he wanted to. A right you stole from him with this… joke of a settlement.”
She scoffed. “Easy for you to say. Elijah and I might need those seven zeroes if he can’t pull it together. He’s already had to bow out of one deal because of his panic attacks. If he can’t get past this, we’ll have to survive somehow.”
Guilt curdled like bad milk in his stomach. He was trying. Couldn’t she see that? Elijah swiped at the tears on his cheeks, his face hot, pressing himself deeper into the tiny alcove at the top of the stairs. They wouldn’t see him. They didn’t know he was listening. There was no way to even know he was there, but still, he felt vulnerable. He pulled his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his cheek against his upraised knees.
He’d thought she’d be happy now that she had the money, but she wasn’t. Every time he cried, every time he woke up screaming, she looked at him with such disgust. Sometimes, she tried to bribe him with video games or candy.Just smile. Come on, Eli. You’re an actor. Just act like it never happened until you forget that it did happen. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but this could be the best thing that ever happened to us.
“You greedy bitch.” Elijah’s gaze went wide, and he bit down on his lower lip until he tasted copper. His grandpa’s voice trembled as if he was barely holding it together. Elijah knew that feeling. “When my good-for-nothing son died and left you penniless, I made sure you and the boy would want for nothing. I gave you my home, I paid off your car and your thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Hell, I even paid for all three of your trips to rehab. But that wasn’t enough for you. You shoved that boy in front of a camera the first chance you got, profiting off my name and my legacy.”
“Eli loves acting,” she swore.
It was true. Elijah had loved it. There had been nothing better than putting on a costume and pretending to be somebody else for a while, pretending to be somewhere else for a while. It didn’t matter who. But was ruined now. The one thing that Elijah had loved more than anything was now dirty and ugly and twisted. Now, every time there was a camera on him his skin crawled like there were millions of ants underneath and his stomach swooped like he was on a roller coaster.
“You treat him like he’s a cash cow. He has no friends, no hobbies, no life. Only work,” his grandfather shouted.
“Elijah is a star. He has been in four blockbuster films. He’s walked a hundred red carpets. I did that. Not you. Not his father. He has a career because of me. He will be set for life because of me. Do you know what I was doing at twelve to survive? I promise you; I didn’t have a house like this.”
“Jesus. Do you even hear yourself? You’re so desperate to make him into the star you could never be that you sold out your own son.”
She gasped. “I did no such thing. How dare you? I love my son. He was supposed to help Eli. I never thought—”
“Don’t give me that horseshit,” his grandpa snapped. Everybody knew the rumors. Hell, I haven’t stepped foot in Hollywood in ten years and even I’d heard what kind of man he was. You ignored it just like you ignore anything that doesn’t suit your narrative. You ignored it because of his connections, because of greed. You let that man—” Elijah went cold and then hot as his grandpa choked on a sob. His grandpa never cried. Ever. Not even when his dad had died. “You let that man take advantage of Elijah and then you signed this—” Papers slapped against a hard surface. “And you told him it didn’t matter.”
There was the loud crack of skin on skin. “You smug bastard. It’s so easy to swoop in after the fact and act like you would have done things differently.”
“Smug? Of course, I would have done things differently. I would have called the police.”
“Right? Do you think the police would have done jack—”
“I would have called the police,” he shouted over her. “And if that didn’t work, I would have called the FBI. I would have kept calling until they arrested him.” He halted, taking a deep breath and when he spoke again, it was softer. “I would have let that boy tell his story. You put a gag order on a twelve-year-old boy and told him what happened to him didn’t matter. How long before you shoved him back in front of the cameras?”
His mother tsked. “What good does dwelling do? It won’t make it go away. It won’t change what happened. He needs a distraction. He needs to get on with his life.”
“You’re a monster. I’ve always known it. I just let myself believe you would at least be tenderhearted with your own child. Now I see the truth. You’re not fit to take care of him. The boy’s coming with me.”
There was a long silence. Elijah picked up his head, his hands trembling as he rubbed his eyes, his heart beating just a little too fast against his ribs.Oh, please. Oh, please.Oh, please.Dread pooled like tar in his belly. His mom would never let him go. She said it all the time.
“You’re insane. I’ll never let that happen,” she said, clearly shocked at his grandpa’s words.
“Oh, yes you will. You will or I’ll go to the press and you’ll be on the hook when this piece of shit sues your ass for violating the contract, and I promise whatever number he asks for will make this look like cab fare.”
“You’d hang me out to dry like that? You’d only hurt Eli. They’d demand the money back.”
“My grandson will never want for anything. The boy is coming with me and don’t even think about touching this settlement. It belongs to Eli and I’ll go broke before I let you touch even one penny of that blood money.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked, indignant.
His grandpa sounded disgusted when he said, “I’d tell you to get a job, but I don’t trust you not to go adopt some poor kid from the orphanage and throw him into some dog and pony show. You leave us alone and I’ll make sure you get a nice big, fat check every month. But if you press this issue, I’ll ruin you. That boy needs peace and time to heal. He doesn’t need some harpy screaming in his ear every day, making him feel worse.”
“I’m his mother. He won’t want to go.”
