Walter stared at the porch rail.
“He’s sixteen.”
“I know.”
“He don’t need to work full time. He needs to finish.”
“I know that too.”
Walter pushed himself up.
His ribs were better.
His temper was not.
“Where is he?”
“At home, I assume.”
Walter grabbed his keys.
Ms. Bell blinked.
“You can’t just storm into—”
“I ain’t storming.”
He very much was.
Eli lived with his mother and younger sister in a rented duplex on the edge of Dry Hollow.
Paint peeling.
A porch sagging worse than Walter’s feed room roof had.
Walter parked crooked, marched up the walk, and knocked hard enough to make the thin door shiver.
Eli’s mother opened it.
Tired eyes.
Hair still in a work clip.
She looked at Walter, then at the truck, then back at Walter like she was trying to place whether this was bad news or a strange type of mercy.
“Mr. Boone?”
“Is he home?”
She hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I drove here.”
That was not a kind answer.
But she surprised him by almost smiling.
“Come in.”
Eli was at the table with a stack of forms and a face gone shut.
His little sister sat on the floor doing math homework with the concentration of a soldier diffusing a bomb.
Leave a Comment