Page 23 of The Care of Broken Things
“Don’t extend the mortgage. My sister can help you out.”
“Your sister? Isn’t she only twenty?”
“She’ll be twenty-two soon, not that it matters. She’s loaded. A trust fund baby. Won’t even miss the money.”
“I’m not taking money from a kid. Not even as a loan.”
“You say that, but she’ll find a way to give it to you anyway now that you’re involved.”
“Involved?”
He shrugged. It was hard to explain Jenny. She didn’t like owing people anything, and she didn’t like her brother racking up debt either. Once she heard how Eli was caring for him, she’d want to do something for Nathaniel back. He was sure of it. And for once it didn’t bother him. The circles around the man’s eyes were very dark.
“That reminds me,” Nathaniel continued, “Hailey was asking about you. It’s Eli’s fault, mostly. He kept talking about his hero the last time he was on the phone with her, and now she has all sorts of questions. She wants to know if she can write to you.”
“Write to me?” The idea was baffling, and not only because snail mail was a thing he thought had died in the last century. Why did a child he’d never met want to write to him?
“The warden told me you can get letters every day. Isn’t that nice? I was thinking of writing to Eli, just to give him something to hold on to, as lame as that sounds.”
He didn’t think it was lame at all. Actually, he was wondering why he’d never thought of doing it himself. There had been many lonely nights when he would have loved to read over some letter of Jenny’s.
“Do you want me to write back?”
“Don’t feel as if you have to. I already told her you have too much to worry about, and we can’t be adding to your troubles. If the letters get to be too much, just tell Eli and we’ll make her stop.”
He found he could imagine her. One father torn from her and the other walking around in a daze of loss. She was alone. Alone in the way Jenny was alone, but worse, because she couldn’t even come and visit.
“Tell her I’ll look forward to it.”
That startled Nathaniel. His eyes opened a little wider, and Samuel realized there were flecks of gold thrown in with the brown. The man smiled, and with it looked a little less tired. “I will.”
Nathaniel mostly did the talking after that. Talking and eating. Samuel lost track of the amount of food they put away. He had a feeling Nathaniel hadn’t eaten properly in a long time. Not that the prison food could be considered proper, but it was more substantial than the shit Eli was being forced to subsist on.
It was another topic Nathaniel was frantic about. He wanted an exact list of what Eli was putting into his mouth. “He must be so hungry,” he lamented, looking helpless again. “He’ll stick to that gross fish and never complain, but he’ll keep losing weight. Is there nothing we can do? I’m not getting anywhere with the gluten-free meals, and even if I could, I’m not sure I would trust whoever was cooking.”
“I could talk to Norm,” he found himself saying. “Make his meal myself. He’d take me on as part of the crew if I asked.”
“Oh, could you? Even if it was just to boil him some vegetables that would be something. His body is so sensitive, and it’s used to good food.”
“I think we mostly get in canned vegetables, so it’s still processed, but I’ll see what I can do. I know some of the guards will smuggle things in for a price. I can ask—”
“Absolutely not. Nothing that could get you in trouble.”
“But that might be the only way—”
“No, and if I find out you’ve gone ahead and done it anyway, I really will have Eli tie you to the bed for the rest of your sentence.”
The visit ended soon after that. Samuel flinched when The Android tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Time’s up, Fuller.”
Nathaniel hugged him again, but this time he pressed his mouth close to whisper, “Stay clear of that one. I don’t like the look of him.”
He didn’t need to be told twice, though he was surprised by just how quickly Nathaniel picked up on it.
Eli wanted to know all about his visit. “Isn’t he cute?”
Sure, if cute was another way of sayingcan eat twice his body weight in a single meal.
“What does he teach?”
