Chapter 23: Late Birthday

"You kept them," Eli said.

Gabe looked up from the table with his glasses on his nose.

"All of them. I brought them in my bag. I wanted you to see before we went home."

Eli crossed the cold floor in bare feet and sat down across from him.

There were forty or fifty cards in the box, and some were only drawings.

A bicycle in crayon.

A Christmas card with a lopsided tree.

A birthday card for Gabe's thirty-fifth that said Happy Old Uncle Gabe in Eli's teenage scrawl, with a drawing of a cane.

"You were never old," Eli said.

"I was always old. I just didn't mind until you grew up."

Eli's hands were not steady as he turned them over.

At the bottom lay a plain white card with a graduation cap on it.

Inside, in his own handwriting at twenty-two, were two lines.

Come find me after the party. I want to tell you something.

"I read this in the parking garage of the restaurant," Gabe said. "Twice. Then I drove you home and told you to go inside."

"You never mentioned the card."

"I didn't trust myself to."

Eli looked up.

"I was a coward," Gabe said simply. "I want to fix one part of it today."

"Which part?"

"Your birthday dinner."

By five o'clock on Sunday the kitchen in Brookline was full of steam.

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