He called it an investment in someone who had already proven what kind of person he would become. In the spring, almost 6 months after the morning behind the cypress trees, Richard walked out into the garden one Saturday and found Elijah sitting on the low stone wall near the greenhouse, a notebook open on his knees. He was drawing the new rose bushes that Tessa had planted along the south fence. Richard sat down beside him. "You still draw?" Richard asked. "My dad used to draw," Elijah said. "My mom told me he died when I was little. She said he drew on everything, receipts, napkins, the backs of bills." Richard had not known this. He nodded slowly. "Then you come by it honestly," Richard said. They sat in silence for a long moment watching the wind move through the leaves. "Mr. Callaway," Elijah said quietly.
"Yes?" "Do you ever still feel scared about that morning?" Richard thought about the question.
He thought about it for a long time because the boy deserved a real answer. "Sometimes," Richard said. "Not the way I felt it then." "But sometimes I wake up at night and I remember the sound of the engine at the gate and I think about how close I came to walking past you and not stopping. And what I feel then is not fear exactly. It is something more like gratitude that has not yet learned how to sit still."
Elijah nodded slowly. He understood in the way that children sometimes understand things adults cannot put into words. "My mom says that doing the right thing does not always make your life easier, but it lets you look at yourself in the mirror without having to look away," he said. Richard looked out across the garden at the greenhouse glowing softly in the spring light. "Your mom is right," Richard said. "She has been right about almost everything."