CHAPTER THREE: PROXIMITY
1134 Words
Nadia's POV
He showed up at seven in the morning before we had opened the front door.
I was still on my first coffee, keys in hand, and there he was. Already on the sidewalk with his hands in his pocket looking at the restaurant sign like he was thinking of changing it.
Great.
What a way to start the morning.
“You're early.” I said.
“I don't come in late.”
“I remember,” the words came out of my mouth before I could stop it.
He didn't react or maybe he did and I had just lost the ability to read him after six years and honestly it wasn't a good one.
The next three weeks were fine and ran smoothly.
He would arrive and take a good look at the books, walk to the kitchen with Priya and ask questions that actually made things better. He was good at this, too good. I kept waiting for a version that I could hate but found none and kept getting the other one instead.
The one who used to burn pasta whenever he was distracted.
That one, which was not helpful.
“You still have that habit,” he said one afternoon.
I was arranging the spice rack for the third time that week.
“What habit?”I asked.
“Arranging when you are avoiding something.” He replied.
“I'm not avoiding anything,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
He had this “I don't believe you,” look on his face but he did not push further. He never pushed; back then, I thought it was a good habit now I felt like removing the answers from his throat.
He laughed once that week, laughing at something that Priya had said about a supplier who kept sending the wrong cut of beef and I had to turn around and face the oven until I gained back my composure.
“Pull yourself together,” I said to myself.
Priya, who was ignorant of what she was doing, mentioned on a certain afternoon that my son had a break on Thursday.
I looked at Ethan searching for any crack in his expression but found none.
He didn't look up from the invoice and didn't move, but the atmosphere changed slightly.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Family comes first.”
After that, he started to notice things.
I could feel it.
The drawings that Liam had placed behind the register: a dark-haired stick figure next to the tall one that had no face on it because Liam had been too impatient to finish the drawings and came to a conclusion that it has been finished anyways. The school photo was beside the machine.
Then Liam had his break.
Priya brought him back and he climbed the counter, grabbed a bread roll, munching on it as he looked at Ethan who was working across the room.
Ethan looked at his way once but he did not look away, he continued eating his food.
Ethan left the room to get a juice box from the fridge and dropped it on the counter that was in front of him.
Liam looked at the juice box then he looked at Ethan, he picked it up without saying a word then went back to munching his bread.
Not even a thank you. My son had the aura of a CEO and I honestly don't know where he got it from.
After that incident, Liam started drawing the tall man at home. He added some details, dark hair, long legs, no face and brought it to the restaurant: placing it behind the register as he told me that it was the man who had got him the juice box.
I didn't take them down.
And from that week, two juice boxes appeared on the counter. One for him, and the other, probably for Liam.
Nobody said anything about it.
“How old is your son?” He asked me one Thursday evening.
My heart raced a bit.
“Six,” I replied. “Why?”
“No reason, just wanted to know the details.” He replied.
He didn't only want to know the details. Ethan gathers information and waits for the appropriate time before dishing it out.
I went home that night and stood at the entrance of Liam's room.
I turned off the lights and went to the kitchen and stood there in the dark thinking of things that I couldn't control. The drawings. The photos. The way Liam's face looked when he was concentrating on something was exactly the same way someone else's face looked when he was concentrating on something.
I couldn't make Liam look like someone else.
Same way, I couldn't stop Ethan from noticing things, hiding them away and waiting until he had evidence before he finally laid his claims.
I was running out of time and I knew it.
The.worst part of this is Ethan wasn't doing anything wrong: he was just showing up and doing his job, bringing juice boxes and still making little details on what he had seen
He wasn't trying to test me.
He was just being himself which was putting me on edge.
Two mornings later, Liam woke up to a running temperature. His cheeks were red, eyes glassy as tears were running down his cheeks by lunch.
By midnight, I was in the back of the cab with him limp against my shoulder. One hand was placed on his head and the other hand was trying to dial Priya.
There was another name that has been ringing in my heart the whole ride but I couldn't call him.
The cab driver glanced at the mirror twice. I kept my hands at his back and sang soft lullabies to him. By the time we had gotten to the hospital, his shirt was very wet.
The nurse on duty took one look at him and moved pretty fast.
IV in. The monitor was on. The temperature was reading like I would know what the number meant.
I nodded my head like I knew.
I sat beside him and held his hand. This was not my first time as I had done it alone before when he broke out in a fever.
I called Priya at 3am, she said she was coming and hung up before I could even argue.
At that point, I was grateful to her.
The monitor beeped. Down the hallway, a trolley went by minding its own business as it was not bothered by any of this.
What I didn't know as I accompanied Liam that Priya was going to make a second call.
One I hadn't asked for.
One that was about to walk into the ward.
- Writer
