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I’ve had my suspicions for years now, but never had it in me to seek out the only person with real proof.
“If you had actual proof, or some type of confession, then that would put him away for quite some time,” Sander says, voice low and steady.
“How long?” I ask.
“Hard to know exactly, but I’d guess closer to ten years. But you’d need substantial proof for all of it,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, turning to look him in the eyes, “let’s get it then.”
Chapter 88
It took telling Eli that there had been a family emergency to get him to agree to see us.
When Bodhi told me last night that he wanted to set up a meeting with my brother, I told him there was a slim chance Eli would actually agree to it. After he’d been sentenced, he told Ma and I that he didn’t want us seeing him like this, locked away and hardened by the shit hand he was dealt.
We tried to change his mind in the beginning, showing up for visitation every week anyway, but he never met with us. After a while, Ma started getting upset and more than a little heartbroken. I was afraid of what that might do to her health, so we eventually stopped coming at all.
It hurt me not to see my brother. I’m sure it hurt Ma worse, not seeing her son. But what choice did we have? He wouldn’t cooperate and the gas it took to get there and back was starting to cost me.
However, Bodhi was determined to meet him. When I asked why it was so important that it happen now, he said he had a plan.
“Do you trust me?” He’d asked last night while he held me, curled around me while I laid in bed.
I was surprised to find out how easily the answer came to me. I did trust him. I wasn’t sure when exactly it happened, but it did.
He filled me in on the conversation he and Sander had, and how he wanted to get Mateo to admit to falsely accusing my brother.
“I want to get him out of there. Get him back home to you and your mom,” he’d said.
“Really?”
The idea of Eli coming back home excited me beyond belief. I’ve missed having him around. The annoying way he always teased me or joked around. Little things that I took for granted.
“I always wondered if things would go back to normal when he got out, or if he’d change so much that things would never be the same again,” I admitted in the quiet of the room.
Bodhi wouldn’t stay the night, wanting to respect my mom, but he did lay with me for a while before going home for the night.
“I’m sure he’ll change a little, but he’ll still be your brother. I mean, you’ve probably changed, too.”
He had a point. I had changed. I think we both had to in order to survive, and I couldn’t hold that against him.
“I always worried about how difficult it would be for him, coming home after being in jail for so long. Whether acclimating back to a normal life would be too hard for him.”
I’d always heard stories about how hard it was for people. I didn’t want that for my brother.
“Well, we can try our best to make sure the transition is easy for him,” Bodhi said. My heart swelled with love for him in that moment. How he didn’t see this as something Ma and I would have to shoulder alone.
“I wonder what kind of job he’ll be able to get,” I’d said aimlessly, mostly just thinking out loud.
“From what I hear, he’s one hell of a driver.”
Is. Not was.
“Yeah, but now he doesn’t have a car to come home to,” I sighed.
“I may have a solution to that,” Bodhi had chuckled.
I’d turned over to face him. “You are not about to start loaning out more of your cars, I hope. Even if you did, I couldn’t imagine Eli accepting the offer.”
