Page 7 of The Sound Of Us

“Have you eaten?”

“I’ll eat on the plane.”

She somehow manages to bury my six-foot frame inside hers, hugging me tight.

“I love you, Eli. So much,” she says when she pulls back. “You deserve all the happiness in the world. Go and fulfil your and dad’s last wish; grieve him the way that feels right to you. You deserve to grieve your father, Eli. But I also want you to live. Find a husband who’ll love you and then be happy with him, my son. I love you, Eli.”

“I love you too, Mom,” I sign and pull her back for a hug.

I’m grateful for the family I have. For the life I have. I have wanted for nothing. I’ve been loved and cherished and guided my entire life, and I am grateful for the privilege I’d been born into.

It’s true that I’m struggling with expressing the extent of my devastation. To adequately describe just how shattered I am for the loss of my father.

I have so much to be grateful for. It seems unfair that I should ask for more. It seems selfish to wish for just one more day with him after the life I’d lived alongside him.

I’ve been given so much. How could I ask for more?

Chapter 4

Axel

My musings about my life, my town and my (almost non-existent) future are periodically interrupted by flashes of the new resident’s face stealing through my mind.

“Axel, dear, you’d better hurry and get inside. We haven’t had a storm like this in thirty years.” My next-door neighbor pulls me out of my runaway thoughts with her worried tone. I set down my axe and give her my biggest smile.

Elizabeth Dalton, a rising star in Hollywood during the eighties, and who, to her eternal regret, chose a husband over her career, peers at me from under her white woollen hat.

“I’m almost done, Mrs. Dalton.” (Thankfully, otherwise she’d have stood out here in this cold to keep me company).

“You got yourself some nice warm pants?” she asks.

“Yes, Mrs. Dalton.”

It may have seemed like an odd thing to ask, but do you know that saying about neighbors being your first family? I couldn’t remember the exact words, but it means that if you were ever in trouble, it was your neighbor who would be the first to help you, since they’re the closest.

Mrs. Dalton’s question is very valid. She’s the one who gave me the idea for the double and triple layering about two years ago.

She knew the drill. Not just from watching me and Frank for several years, but because we’d watched her and Mr. Dalton for the same amount of years, too.

Mr. Dalton hit his wife regularly right until the day he died. The last hit meant for Mrs. Dalton’s delicate face had frozen mid-air, while Mr. Dalton’s heart pumped for the very last time.

“Axel, darling, why don’t you just leave? Run away where no one knows you. Start a new life. Find someone who will love you so much you’d die for them,” she’d said one time.

I would’ve smiled that day if it hadn’t been for the unbearable sting coming from my split bottom lip. Mrs. Dalton was a hopeless romantic.

“He said it was the last time.” I’d spoken straight out of the Most Unconvincing Excuse For Abuse-Victims handbook.

With a sigh, she’d filled my cup up again and said, “You need at least three pairs of sweatpants and sweatshirts. We can’t do anything about the face—” she’d touched her fingers to the rise of her cheekbone, as if she could still feel the slam of Mr. Dalton’s fist—“but the bruises everywhere else are much better if you’re well padded.”

“I have enough, Mrs. Dalton,” I call back now, as if we’re talking about whether I have enough sugar, and not about my upcoming undeserved beating. “Four more months, huh?” I say.

These last few months, if you wanted to distract Mrs Dalton from something, all you had to do was bring up the topic of how she’s going to be a grandma for the first time in a few months.

“Almost there, Axel, honey. Can you believe it?”

“Time sure flies, Mrs. Dalton. You go on inside, now. This snow is really coming in.”

Her head bobs with a quick nod and I head inside with Pepper trudging behind me. She’s still so mad at me she won't even talk to Mrs. Dalton.

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