A man at the counter laughed at something on his phone. Marcus looked at Elena Brooks across the table. I would have told you I loved you, he said. That I'd figure out the money and the distance and whatever else needed figuring out, that I wasn't going anywhere. Elena closed her eyes for exactly 3 seconds.
When she opened them, something had shifted in her face. Not broken, not healed, but moved. Like something heavy that's been in the wrong place for a long time finally getting lifted and set somewhere else. Somewhere that isn't the right place yet, but is at least not the wrong one anymore. "Okay," she said.
Her voice was steady. Okay, I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight, Marcus said. I'm not asking you for anything tonight. "I just—" "Pie," she said. He stopped.
"What? " "I told you Thursday was for pie," Elena said. And I meant that. Everything else is it's a lot. It's too much for one diner booth on a Thursday evening, but the pie is still here, and so are we. She raised her hand toward the waitress.
And I think we should eat some pie, Marcus. Because I have not gotten to the end of this particular road yet, and I suspect you haven't either, and neither of us should attempt the rest of it on an empty stomach. " Marcus looked at her for a long moment. Then, for the first time since she had walked up to his truck window in the blue red pulse of her cruiser lights, he felt something in his chest loosen. Not disappear, not resolve. Just shift slightly.
Make room for air. "Yeah," he said. ""Okay. "" The waitress came. Elena ordered sweet potato pie for both of them. The waitress left. The diner kept moving around them entirely indifferent to the fact that at table 7, something that had been frozen for 15 years had just very slightly, very carefully begun to thaw.
They ate their pie. They talked not about the big things, not about Briana, not about the relationship she couldn't bring herself to commit to in Douglas County. Not about Darnell or the graduation night or the hospital waiting room. They talked about Zoe. Marcus pulled out his phone and showed Elena the photo from Zoe's last school play in which Zoe had played a talking cloud with enormous conviction and no visible self-consciousness.
"She's beautiful," Elena said. She meant it. No performance in it, no social nicety, just a straight honest statement. "She's the best thing I've ever done," Marcus said. Elena looked at the photo for another moment.
What happened with her mother, if you don't mind me asking. "We weren't right for each other," Marcus said. We were together for about 2 years. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't.
It wasn't what either of us needed. She's in Atlanta now. Good woman, good mother when she has her weeks. Zoe handles it better than I would have at her age. He paused.
I don't think I was capable of being what anyone needed. Back then, I was so focused on making sure Zoe had what she needed that I forgot to be a full person in the relationship. Occupational hazard of single parents, Elena said. You know any single parents? "I am one," she said.
"Sort of. " My niece Kesha, the one from the parking lot, her father is not in the picture and my sister works nights at the county hospital. I have Kesha three evenings a week and every other weekend. "She called you Auntie Ellie," Marcus said. Elena's expression did the warm thing, the unguarded thing. She started that when she was two.
She couldn't say Elena. Now I think she could and she just won't. Marcus smiled. Real this time. Kids find the version of you that the rest of the world doesn't always get to see, he said.
That's exactly what they do, she said. She looked at him steadily. "You're different," she said. From 17 from the boy I knew. Yeah.
"Is that good or bad? " Marcus asked. "I don't know yet," she said. Honestly, I think it's both. The things that made you, you are still in there. The way you listen, the way you think before you answer.
The way you're looking at me right now like you're terrified of saying the wrong thing. Say anything. And you're going to say the true thing anyway because you're more scared of saying the wrong thing. She tilted her head. That's still you.
All of that is still you. But Marcus said, "But there's something new, too. " She said, "Heavier. Not in a bad way. Like you've been carrying something a long time and you got strong from it. You could just say I look tired," Marcus said.
Elena laughed. "The real one. The full body one. " Her shoulders came up and her head went back and the sound of it was completely out of proportion. And then she looked briefly embarrassed about it. And then she stopped caring.
Marcus sat across from her and felt 17 years old for four consecutive seconds. Then his phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Ranata's name on the screen. He silenced it and put it face down.
"Go ahead," Elena said. It's fine, Marcus. "Answer it. " She's watching your daughter. You're allowed to answer it. He picked it up.
Hey, Ranata. Zoe wants to know if she can sleep over. Ranata said without preamble. Tell her yes," Marcus said. She also wants to know if the police lady is nice.