It was a surprisingly warm April day in Queens, New York. All along the not-so busy street, children were taking the opportunity to run out their youthful energies before the spring storms rolled back in to ruin their fun. Some rode bicycles, others played with jump ropes and hula hoops, while still others just rand around the cozy older neighborhood with no real structure to their play.
A man observed the frenzied pulse of activity from within a ground-floor apartment's kitchen window as a woman poured tea for the two of them. He was a large man, well-built and defined by decades of a hard-working life. Dark, short cropped hair crowned his weathered face and his amber eyes twinkled as if they held the answer to all of life's mysteries. He looked up to his hovering companion, and motioned for her to sit down in the open chair opposite him.
By contrast, the woman was small and mouse-like. Her light brown hair was coiffed precisely into a distinct bun at the nape of her long, graceful neck. Her fair face and lighter eyes maintained a look of calculating worry. Her prim manner of movement gave way to a sigh of disdain and frustration as she finally sat as requested.
"This is my house, Elijah. You don't get to tell me when to sit and stand. Besides, I don't see why you've even come over to stick your big, Irish nose in all of this. I told you, Michael and I have already made up our minds," she said, as she nervously stirred her tea.
Her companion, Elijah, laughed then set his cup down. He glanced out the window above her head, then regarded her again,
"It wasn't meant as an insult, Virginia. You just never sit down, like you're afraid something's going to go wrong as soon as you do." He rested his large hands behind his head, and eyed the woman carefully.
"And you know perfectly well why I'm sticking my, how did you say it? 'Big Irish nose' in it. You don't know all the facts, and you probably didn't even give Mike a say in it. You never do, because he's always so busy tinkering around down at that shop. If you could just see what your boy can do ..."
"That's enough. My son is no different from any child on this block, and I will not have you filling his head full of this nonsense. Honestly, Eli, he's got a father. Stop trying to supplant him."
A dark look washed across the man's normally jovial face as he leaned forward to speak more directly to Virginia. His hand caught hold of hers in a familial gesture.
"Ginny, I'm telling you. You're holding him back by not letting him choose for himself. The boy's fourteen, for holy sake. And you can't stop him from being special, because he just is. I don't want to replace Mike, that's not my intention and you know that. All I want to do is protect the boy from the wrong people. You don't know what those people want to do. He's lucky that he's passive or they would have come for him two years ago!"
Virginia pulled away, not wanting to look Elijah directly in the eyes. She refused to believe a word her childhood friend had to say. But deep down, there was a seed of understanding and acceptance. She only had one son, one child. She couldn't let anything happen to him ...
"Ginny, you know I'm right. Just ask him, see if he wants to do it. If he can do all those amazing things with numbers and clocks like I've seen him do, just imagine what he could do with a car."
She turned to look at the man once again. He sat there as calm as a spring day, and Virginia couldn't, for the life of her, understand why. It wasn't just her son's safety on the line, but Eli's own daughter. Was he so willing to risk the lives of ones so young?
"Both of those are easily explained, Eli. He's a smart boy and numbers come easily to him. As for clocks ... it's just a talent that happens to run in his father's family. Why are you so anxious to get him into such a dangerous class? Why allow your daughter to participate?"
He took another drink of his tea. Eli could tell that he was wearing her down, little by little.
"He's perfectly safe, so long as I'm around. And she is, too. It'll give them both an outlet to develop their skills and allow me to limit their contact with the wrong people. If Angie knew I wasn't handing them both over, she'd -"
"Don't mention that woman ever again in my presence," Virginia said tersely, cutting him off. "She is a poor excuse for a person, wife and mother, and I promise you that if she ever got her destructive hands on my son, I'd ... well, it wouldn't be ladylike, by any means."
Elijah took her hands into his own again, looking her dead in the eyes. He lowered his already deep voice, as if afraid they were being watched, and said,
"That's exactly why you have to trust me, Ginny. I'll give up everything to keep those kids safe, if it kills me. You have my promise on that. So let him take auto shop, and stop pressuring him into that dead-end clock shop job."
She sighed again, and nodded her head, defeated. He was right, of course. There was no one better to protect her only pride and joy than her best friend and most trusted confidante.
"All right. But we compromise. I'll let him take the class if you don't tell him a word about these nonsense abilities. And Elora can't tell him either. Gabriel's a fragile boy."
Eli smiled, knowing full and well that Virginia didn't know her son as well as she thought she did. There was nothing fragile about that boy. But he just nodded and squeezed the petite woman's hands.
"I promise, Ginny. Neither of us will speak a word of it to him. Elora doesn't even know about her own, so there's no way she could spill the beans to Gabe ..."
At that moment, the door clicked behind them and the two fell silent. Eli pulled his hands back to his side and stood up from his chair as a lanky, dark haired and bespectacled young man came in, a bag full of books resting precariously on his shoulders. Virginia rose also, and quickly moved to her son's side, hugging him tightly.
"Oh, you're home, Gabriel. Did you have a nice time at the library? Can I make you a sandwich?"
"Mom, hi. Yeah, the library was alright, I guess. It's a library. I don't really want a sandwich ..." he began, but it was too late. His mother had already breezed past both men to busy herself in the kitchen.
Gabriel sighed, setting his bag down on the desk behind the couch. He looked up as Elijah began to laugh at the mother and son antics he was so accustomed to.
"Mr. Sullivan, I didn't know you were here. Where's Elora? Did she come with you?"
Eli walked over to shake the boy's hand in greeting. "I was just on my way out, actually, Gabe. She's babysitting for the O'Keefe's upstairs, so I walked her over. I was hoping you'd walk her home tonight when she's done."
Gabriel nodded as he watched his mother place a turkey sandwich and a rather tall glass of milk on the table, then continued to watch as she removed the used teacups from sight.
"That's no problem. I needed to talk to her later anyway. Don't worry, Mr. Sullivan, she'll make it home safely."
"Good man, Gabe. I can always count on you," Eli said as he waved farewell to the small woman in the kitchen. He shook Gabriel's hand again and headed for the door.
"I'll talk to you later, Virginia; you can count on it. Gabe, I'll see you later tonight. Elora should be done around nine. Now, I've got to go see a man about a car."
Elijah let himself out, and as he walked past all the gleeful children playing, he couldn't help but wish that mankind could always stay in a state of blissful ignorance of the harsh world around them.