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Rowan shook their head, still seeming fixed on the older man’s first point. “It’s sweet that Eli is willing to live on her time, you know? Not asking anything. Not expecting it either. But…hoping. You screwed up, you owned it. That’s all you can do.”
“You’re really wise for nineteen,” Eli noted.
“People say I’m an old soul. I was the only one in my family who didn’t see the point of trick-or-treating,” Rowan confessed.
It took a lot for Eli to confide this. “Frankly, I’ve blocked out a lot of my childhood. My mother died when I was young, I was bullied afterward…”
“Been there. It sucks.” Rowan reached over, touching his hand briefly in sympathy. Their mouth twisted. “With the bullying, I mean, not losing my mom. For better or worse, she’s out there praying for my soul as we speak.”
He smiled at Rowan. It felt good to open up, and Henry Dale was listening with full attention too. They both seemed to expect him to continue. “I lost my dad a few years later. I have relatives on my mom’s side, but…I’ve never sought them out.”
“Why not?” Henry Dale asked.
For the first time, Eli admitted the truth out loud, what he’d barely acknowledged to himself. “If there’s no connection, if they just see me as an outsider, it will hurt so much that I don’t think I’ll ever recover from it. So I’m afraid to try.”
“Wow,” Rowan whispered. “This feels like a hugging moment. Do youwanta hug?”
“Sure,” Eli said.
They leaned over to give him a careful side hug, easily achieved since Henry Dale had commandeered the whole other side of the booth. The man didn’t like sharing space.
“Better?” Rowan asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Elididfeel better.
Henry Dale cleared his throat. “If you want my opinion, you should go see them. You have family you’ve never met, and I’m sure they wonder about you.”
“If they even know I exist.”
“Then you’ll be an amazing surprise,” Rowan said.
“I’ll think about it.” He signaled for the check, and the other two let him pay without argument. At least one good thing had come from everyone finding out about his streak of success with various apps. “Hey, I don’t think I said so before, but I’m happy that your comic is taking off.”
Rowan visibly glowed over hearing that. “Between the discount for helping with Iris’s business and what I’m earning online, I’m pretty close to self-sufficient now. And it’ssucha relief. My parents have been saying, ‘You have no marketable skills, no education,’ and they had me scared that I’d end up homeless if I tried to move out.”
“That’s bullshit,” Henry Dale said fiercely. “You’re smart and resourceful, and lots of people care about you.”
“Aw. You’re making me want to hugyoutoo, HD.” Rowan grinned, likely knowing that the older man would rise to the bait.
Sure enough, Henry Dale pretended to glare. “The cheek!”
Taking that as his cue, Eli stood up and headed out, still thinking about what they’d said about his mom’s side of the family. Once they got in the truck, he said, “Maybe I don’t have to start with anything as big as a visit. I could look for cousins on the socials and reach out that way, see if anyone…”
“Cares?” Rowan suggested.
Eli started the truck and checked his rearview mirror. “Another issue is the language barrier. I feel guilty that my Spanish isn’t better, like I’m letting my mother down.”
“Then that’s what you work on,” Henry Dale said.
As Eli backed out of the restaurant parking lot, he shot the older man an inquiring look. “What?”
“Take Spanish lessons. If she’d lived, she would’ve taught you, and she would’ve introduced you to her family unless there was some bad blood you don’t know about. It’s best to assume otherwise if you didn’t hear anything.”
Eli considered. “I never did, no. To the best of my knowledge, they lost touch because of the distance. I’m sure my mom intended to reconnect, but then she got sick. IthinkGamma said that my maternal grandfather had remarried, and Mom didn’t like her stepmother, so that’s why she stayed in the US. She was here on a student visa and then married my dad. But I’m pretty sure she had an older brother…”
“Families are complicated,” Rowan said with a sigh. “But if your granddad started a second family, youmighthave even more aunts and uncles and twice as many cousins.”
“Glad to see you’re taking my advice on this much,” Henry Dale added.
