Page 10 of Now Until Forever
Eliana stepped off the bottom step of the concrete stairs and pushed through the turnstile onto the busy street. People on the sidewalk. People on the road passing by in their cars, heading home from work.
Her cell buzzed in her pocket, a quick hum. Another text.
Three teenage guys approached her on the sidewalk, wearing dark sweatshirts with their hoods pulled up. All shorter than her. One wore smart glasses, the light from a game shining on his face. He walked between the other two as the trio chatted.
Smart Guy glanced at her and shook his head. “She doesn’t have the app.”
One of his friends looked her up and down. “Shame.”
Eliana walked past them, then glanced back after a few steps to ensure they weren’t focused on her any longer. This wasn’t the worst part of town, but it wasn’t the best either, and she was a single woman walking home alone.
She used her key on the front entrance and stepped into the apartment building lobby. Another glance over her shoulder. The door clicked shut.
Two flights of stairs, past the door where Mr. Collins played his gameshows far too loud. Eliana passed the door she tried to avoid, to the third floor, where she knocked on her neighbor’s door and used the key Patience had given her.
“It’s just me.” Eliana shut the door behind her and locked it, then pulled out her phone and opened it to find a text from her sister, Maizie.
The girls are at their piano lessons for the next hour. Call anytime.
Eliana replied,
Give me ten.
She needed that time, and not just to decide what she was going to share with her sister and what she wasn’t. “Patience?”
“Living room, dear.”
Eliana shrugged off her jacket—Patience liked it warm—and found the older woman in her chair with the TV on. “How was your day?”
“Fine, you know.” The older woman had wrinkled dark skin and curled white hair. She had a friend come over once a month to give her a wash and set, and one of the young women from church did her nails every two weeks.
Eliana wandered over and bussed her cheek with a kiss before taking the plate and cup from her end table. Patience had an old cop show from twenty years ago on the TV that Eliana knew of but hadn’t watched. Another thing that wasn’t part of her growing up.
“My parents never let me watch that show, or any show about murder.” She shot Patience a smile and wandered to the kitchen, putting the dishes in the sink. There were leftovers from what she’d batch cooked over the weekend. “Chicken and rice or the stew for your dinner?”
“Stew, please.” Patience watched her. “Were your parents those strict religious types?”
“They were particular in what they thought, but not fundamentalist in the scary sense. They instilled strong beliefs in me.”
“So what did you watch?”
Eliana put the stew in a pan on the stove and lit the gas. She faced Patience, her stomach resting on the kitchen island, and smiled. “Nothing with murder or police investigations. They didn’t want me to get any ideas about going into the family business, I guess.” She thought about Carlos. “Practically everyone in the family is a cop, or some kind of investigator.”
“Not you?”
Eliana shrugged. “They didn’t want me in that world. They wanted me to choose what I was going to be, to work out who I was without that influence.”
Instead of handing her a legacy with expectations, like Carlos had received from his father, she’d been given… Eliana didn’t even know.
“They weren’t bad parents.” She lifted both hands. “They’re actually great, and my childhood was peaceful. Protected.”
“Sounds safe.”
“I read plenty of books about adventure.” She stirred the stew, then turned down the heat. “One day I decided to run away and find an adventure. I took my dog Cabot with me for company, so I wouldn’t be alone.”
Patience lifted the remote with a shaky hand and paused the show. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I walked for hours and only saw a few birds. The dog drank from a river. I sat under a tree and tried to figure out where I was going to go next, but I fell asleep.” She sighed. “I woke up in my bed. My parents probably would’ve tried to convince me it was a dream, but I never would’ve believed them. All I got was a lecture about making an old dog walk that far.”
