Elijah paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What the fuck?”
Eric laughed, oddly proud of himself for getting a reaction out of the other man. “I didn’t really think I’d survive being fleet admiral.”
“But you have.”
“So far.”
“That’s all that counts. Everyone survives until the day they don’t.” Elijah forked up a potato. “I know it’s trite, but no one gets out of life alive.”
“True.”
“But, that doesn’t mean we should avoid having plans, goals, and hopes for the future.”
Eric stuffed a bite of fish in his mouth, considering the futile yet hopeful nature of existence.
“By the way, this is really good. Is this a Danish dish?”
Maybe the point of life was a meal with a new friend and fried potatoes. “Not specifically. But it’s almost a law that you must start with a base layer of potatoes.”
“A solid foundation,” Elijah agreed solemnly.
He was looking down at his plate when he casually re-asked the question that had started them down this path. “What does your life look like in ten years?”
“I don’t know,” Eric admitted.
“What do you want it to look like?”
He wasn’t sure how to go about answering that.
Elijah set down his fork. “You know what the American holiday Thanksgiving is?”
“Is that the one where you celebrate genocide and American football?”
“Exactly. Usually families come together for the day. People go ‘home.’ When you’re young, that means grandma’s house because your parents are going home too, and you go with them. Eventually you’re the one going home to your parents. First alone, then with a partner, then maybe with children, if you choose that path.”
Eric had no idea where he was going with this.
“The point is, there’s a question people ask. A roundabout way of asking who you want in your life in the future.”
“What question?”
“Who do you want sitting at your Thanksgiving table?”
Eric sat back, as if putting distance between himself and the question could help him escape the gravity.
“The answer doesn’t have to be your children and their spouses. It can be your friends, a family of choice. But the question remains. In the future, if you gathered your family, the people you thought of as family, together for a meal, how many people are there? Who do you picture sitting at the table?”
Colum. Colum and Annie and Xavier. Maybe their kids. A cute little boy with crooked glasses and a girl with Xavier’s dark hair and Josephine’s smile.
Maybe Regina and her trinity. He liked to think that they’d remain friends even after she finished her time in the Spartan Guard and returned to Hungary.
Walt and his trinity. Which reminded him he hadn’t spoken to the good doctor in several weeks. He needed to call.
And Walt’s sister, Sylvia. She was a sweetheart.
Talya and her cat. Her husbands could come too.
Eric realized he was smiling to himself.
