"I might," Richard said. His voice came out so quiet he almost did not hear himself. "I might, Elijah."
I'm trying very hard right now to be wrong about it. His estate attorney—the man who managed the family trust, the man who had stood at Elena's funeral with one hand on Richard's shoulder for the entire 40-minute service and had said nothing because there was nothing to say. The man who had been to dinner at this house perhaps 200 times. The man who had drafted, two months ago, a quiet amendment to the trust that Richard had signed almost without reading because he had trusted the signature line under his own name and the hand that held the pen offering it. Howard Henley. Mr. H. Richard closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, he was looking at the lemon trees at the side of the drive, the ones the boy had climbed over to get into the property. They were heavy with fruit this year. Elena had planted them. She had said once, laughing, that a house was not really a home until something growing in the garden could be eaten. He turned to Elijah.
You said you've been coming here for four days. Where have you been sleeping? Behind the gas station on Pier Street. There's a place behind the dumpster where the wind doesn't reach. I have a blanket.
I rolled it up in my backpack. Elijah patted the strap as if to prove this. I get water from the bathroom in the gas station. The man who works the night shift, he knows me. He gives me a hot dog sometimes if there's one left at the end of the night that he was just going to throw out.
His name is Mr. Patel He's nice. Where are your parents, Elijah? A small silence. The boy did not look away. My mother died last year.
She was sick for a long time. After she died, my aunt said she would take me, but she has four kids already and her boyfriend doesn't like kids. So I stayed for a little while and then I left because I could tell. I went to the shelter. The shelter is okay.