Page 25 of The Care of Broken Things
“They should be serving lunch in a few—”
“Not that shit. I want your food.”
Eli blinked. Then he smiled. A real smile. Now that Hailey had pointed it out, he realized he’d already been categorizing them in his mind. “Let me check the menu with Norm. I’ll see what I can do with it.”
He forced himself to shake his head. “No.Yourfood.”
Eli just looked at him, not understanding.
“You know. The healthy stuff.”
And then Elididunderstand, or at least, he comprehended the words, even if he couldn’t wrap his mind around them. “Myfood? Does that include the fish you can’t inhale without gagging? That food?”
He thought longingly of Eli's amazing pancake sandwiches and kissed all hope of happiness goodbye. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Great question. He wasn’t sure himself. Eloquent little girls were more powerful than he’d thought. “Jenny’s tired of me eating garbage all the time. Before I had her convinced that was just the way it was in prison, but thanks to your little snitch of a husband, she now knows that’s a lie.”
Eli laughed. Samuel wasn’t sure he would. He’d never really tested the theory, but he had a feeling that the fastest way to piss the man off was to shit-talk his family. “So now you want me to fix it.”
“If you don’t make it edible, I’m telling Nathaniel you have shower orgies here.”
“Go ahead. You’ll make his day.”
In the end, sardines couldn’t be made to taste like a Reese’s cup. At least, not with the resources Eli had at his disposal, and that fact seemed to frustrate Eli more than it did anyone else. There were many apologies before the bowl was finally handed over, but the result wasn’t bad. He’d been prepared to choke it down without chewing if he had to, and had the bonus satisfaction of watching Eli tuck into his own serving with an almost-enthusiasm. But it wasn’t the food. Not really. Hailey was right. It was the company Eli liked.
The proof came when they were washing their makeshift dishes off in the bathroom together. He was drying the bowls with paper towels when he heard it. There were no words, and it only lasted a few seconds, but a sound like warming honey came from Eli. Not quite a song, more like humming. Samuel’s hands stopped to listen, but by then it was already over, and he thought he might have imagined it.
He handed his reply to Hailey directly to Warden Cruces. “We have a mailbox,” she told him in that voice she usedwhen she was sharing information he was already well-aware of. Still, he pushed the letter into the stack of papers she was always ferrying around. The prison “mailbox” was handled by bored COs who had nothing better to do than gossip about the letters they had to look through, supposedly for reasons of prison security. If he had to have his mail read, he’d rather it be done by the warden who, at least, wouldn’t go around with it for show and tell.
“Anything in here I have to be concerned about, Fuller?” she asked.
“No.”
And then, right there in front of him, she sealed it. “You going to be bothering me with more of these in the future?”
He stared at the letter. He knew it could be for show. That she could rip it open later if she wanted. But she wouldn’t, and it was making him panic a little. “Probably.”
“Then seal them yourself. I’m not your secretary.”
She’d broken prison rules for him before. Had even put her job on the line for him once. But that had been to save his life. This... The courtesy was nothing much in the scheme of things, and yet the small privacy she granted him with the gesture might have been worth more to him than anything she’d done before. “Thank you.”
She almost smiled. “Stay out of trouble, Fuller,” she said, and tucked his letter more securely into her pile.
The next letter came just as quickly as the first.
Dear Samuel,
Ingredients aren’t a recipe. I need DIRECTIONS. How old are the bananas supposed to be? Are they meant to be blended or just mashed with a fork? Which ingredients get added first? You didn’t even give me an oven temperature! Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him add in other flavoringsbesides vanilla. Plus, I wanted the variation with the coconut oil instead of the butter. I told Thaniel about your failure and he says hot guys don’t need to be competent, just pose moodily in doorways. Yeah, he’s weird.
I guess I’ll have to get the recipe myself when I come and visit. Mom doesn’t look like she plans to budge on the no-prisons-for-impressionable-young-ladies rule any time soon, but I’ve been reading a book on debate tactics. Any advice? What do you do when you want to change people’s opinions? Thaniel says people believe what they want to believe, but that’s too depressing.
I’m sorry to hear daddy isn’t sleeping. Have you tried reading to him? Thaniel does that sometimes when he gets Tired-but-Wired. It seems to help. He likes sappy books with happy endings. I tried telling him those aren’t true to life, but he only says, “It’s true about my life” and then kisses Thaniel, because he’s ALWAYS kissing him. I used to tell him doing stuff like that in front of me was child abuse, but now I’d let them be ten times as gross if only he’d come home. Okay, maybe not ten times. I’d probably die.
Also, thank you for adding Thaniel to your visitor list! Before he would only try to make himself presentable on the days he went to visit daddy, but he showered every day this week, and I think he’s having fun making you a book list.
Now, to answer to your questions:
